Full Bleed, an annual print and online journal of art and design, seeks submissions for its fourth issue, forthcoming in Spring 2020. We publish criticism, belle lettres, artwork, design, illustration, fiction, poetry, and graphic essays. All contributors will receive modest honoraria for their work.

For Issue Four, we are especially interested in submissions that critique, investigate, or rely on archives of various kinds. We seek new writing about artists working with, playing with, re-contextualizing, or elevating archival materials; art or design projects responsive to historical documents; and essays, fictions, and poetry related to the work of archiving. We would be excited to see submissions that critique the construction of narrative through objects and historical documents, or that concern private collecting, hoarding, simplifying, tidying, and the distinction between these activities. When does archiving become obsessive and pathological? What drives people to collect and organize certain objects? We would also welcome work that takes up digital archiving as a subject for rumination, that introduces us to intriguing new archives under development, or that dwells on the ethics and politics of archival practices. Are archives inherently conservative, limited, or futile? Are they treasure troves, haunted houses, or primers in the mistakes we don’t want to make again? What use are they in particular to artists and designers now?

In addition to feature-length essays of up to 7500 words, Full Bleed publishes shorter, recurring columns of approximately 800 to 2000 words. These include "Close Looks", in which writers offer in-depth appreciations of individual artworks; "Design Futures", in which designers propose new ideas relevant to contemporary challenges facing their discipline; "Cities", which examines urban conditions, innovations, and tendencies; and “Studio Visit”, in which the writer visits with and interviews a contemporary artist or designer. 

Please send previously unpublished work along with a brief biography and cover letter through this form by January 1.  

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Published annually by the Maryland Institute College of Art, Full Bleed is committed to cultivating aesthetic experience and progressive design while furthering understanding of contemporary conditions. We favor criticism that emanates personality and experiments with form. We encourage contrarian argument and ambitious critical essays on cultural phenomena that are of active concern to living artists and designers. Issues One (Migration), Two (Crisis), and Three (Machines) are available at www.full-bleed.org.