The fellowship is a paid, year-long, full-time program designed to promote and support emerging designers from historically marginalized communities in gaining the skills, contacts, and experience to help them excel in their design careers.

The Fellow works at CUP full-time, from July 2022 to June 2023, collaborating on our community-engaged design projects as part of the CUP team, working as an in-house designer, and participating in mentorship opportunities. The selected Fellow will receive a stipend of $45,500 (paid in monthly installments), along with health insurance benefits, a flexible leave policy, and a small budget for professional development activities.

The Fellowship is an initiative to support the development of skilled individuals from historically marginalized communities into the design fields, and to dismantle the systemic biases that stand in the way of their advancement as leaders in these fields. We created the Fellowship to leverage CUP’s unique position at the confluence of design and social justice to promote change in the design fields.

The 2022 Fellow will be selected through a competitive, juried process. This year’s jury:

Jerome Harris –– Independent Graphic Designer, Art Director, Educator, and Curator
Annika Izora –– Designer, Artist, Head of Design at Somewhere Good
Marisa Hetzler –– Current Fellow for Change in Design

Learn more about the jury here!

Applications should include:

– A cover letter saying why you are interested in the Fellowship, what you hope to get out of it, your career goals, and how you meet the Fellowship criteria

– A current resume

– A portfolio of your design work. We’re looking for your skills to work on a range of visuals and with type. Please describe the context that your projects were completed in and your role. Your portfolio will be reviewed on screen and in a print-out. Please format your work so all pages can be printed out at 8.5 × 11in. (Max file size: 5 MB)

– A list of 3 references, with contact information

Submit all materials through Submittable by 11:59pm EST on Monday, March 28, 2022.

Please note that we will NOT review applications that do not provide all requested materials. And we will not use links to access additional information that is not uploaded to Submittable (including links to web-based portfolios).

No phone calls, please.

CUP is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to  fair and inclusive employment practices, and strongly encourage people of color, women, LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities, and others who may contribute to the diversification of ideas to apply.

Click here to apply!