At Sold Out we ask what is left out from the curricula in academic and practical spaces within Graphic Design. The question is what is excluded and why, who is producing knowledge and who is distributing it? In an attempt to connect these knowledge gaps and fill the material and structural inequalities we hope to create reference points through published materials within Graphic Design.
The aim is to not simply diversify or democratise the publishing and referencing system, it is to go further and question the inequalities in the spaces around us. We do not want to simply place people of colour in white spaces, accept the status quo of gendered spaces and continue to entertain environments solely built for abled bodies. As a newly established publishing house we want to address how the issues of a white curriculum, the bastion of Eurocentrism, white heteronormative privilege and superiority in particular remains. We do this by publishing toolkits, essays, manifestos, exercise books and many other multi-faceted mediums.
Sold Out is a platform that facilitates multiple different perspectives, it is based on plurality and is in no shape or form claiming to hold complete universal truth or knowledge. We are only here to facilitate our Authors. We invite you to participate, discuss, publish, write and create with us if you feel that your content is placed within our statement. Our tagline, “We’re sold out but you can be too – is both an invitation and a provocation that the published content either fails to come to existence at the moment or doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
The Model
The definition of a model is a standard or an example of imitation. We wish to introduce you to references and referees – authors and content we believe should be of the same standard. Creating models that coexist in the industry with the existing ones. Some of the work we introduce here is finished while others are prospective/speculative titles – in need of an author.
The main objective with Sold Out is to facilitate as many perspectives, narratives, stories, theories that are unreferenced and overlooked. In that we take our responsibility very dearly in terms of keeping our values true to our main objective of being inclusive and at the same time evolving our concept of what inclusivity means. We encourage everyone to be a part of these conversations and keep questioning the criteria. You don’t need a PHD or to be a regular on It’s Nice That to be a part of Sold Out; we only care about your content and what you have to say. When working with our authors we believe in full collaboration with them on the basis of mutual trust. Making their project happen is the core of our integrity.
Our whole process is based on Collaboration, opening-up discussions and questioning the current value systems and how they are built. We are looking at more democratic systems regarding the descision making and distribution.
The Authors
Siddhi Gupta (she/her), Clem Rousset (they/them), Morgan Markey(she/her), Margherita Sabbioneda (she/her), Ravista Mehra (she/her)