Call for Papers: Special Issue of Media Practice and Education

Production Design and the Screen Story: World Building, Meaning-Making and the Visual Concept

Production design is fundamental to the creation of screen stories. As scripts are finalised and prior to cameras rolling, visual thinking— through sketches, drawings, models, storyboards, reference imagery, and other conceptual artefacts— shapes narrative meaning, aesthetic direction and collaborative practice. Despite its centrality to screen production, production design remains under-examined within screen studies and media education scholarship.

This special issue of Media Practice and Education seeks to foreground production design as a critical foundation of screen storytelling by exploring how visual concepts are developed, communicated, taught, preserved, and interpreted across film, television and other screen-based media. Contributions are invited that address production design both as a creative and pedagogical practice, situating it within production workflows, educational contexts, and broader cultural and institutional frameworks.

We welcome creative practice-based research that engages with, but is not limited to, the following themes:

1. Production design and conceptual design practices in screen production
2. The visual concept development in screen storytelling
3. The role of visual artefacts (e.g. sketches, mood boards, models, previsualisation) in narrative construction
4. Visual thinking as a collaborative and interdisciplinary process
5. Pedagogies of visual concept development in screen and media education
6. Practice-as-research approaches to visual conceptualisation
7. Archival perspectives on conceptual materials and production artefacts
8. Visual concepts as sites of authorship, communication, and meaning making
9. The relationship between the visual concept, script, camera and/or performance
10. Digital tools and emerging technologies in visual conceptualisation and realisation

Submissions may take the form of critical reflection of practice-based research outputs or case studies that bridge professional practice and education. Contributions from academics, educators, practitioners, and practitioner-researchers are strongly encouraged.

Submission Guidelines

Abstracts of approximately 250 words should be submitted to PDREN.research@gmail.com by 17 April 2026 with a short author bio.

Manuscripts will align with the aims and scope of Media Practice and Education and adhere to the journal’s submission and formatting guidelines. All submissions will undergo double-blind peer review.

Key Dates

1. Abstract submission deadline: 17 April 2026
2. Notification of acceptance: 31 May 2026
3. Full paper submission deadline: 30 September 2026
4. Publication date: Online TBC, Hard copy 2029

Further Information

For informal enquiries about the suitability of proposed topics, or if you are interested in being on the editorial or peer review panel, please contact PDREN.research@gmail.com.

Call for Papers: Proposed Special Section of Media Industries

Production Design: Current Methodologies in Creative Labour

Production design is a central yet often overlooked form of creative labour within screen industries. Through the design of spaces, objects, environments, and visual concepts, production designers and art departments shape narrative meaning while navigating complex industrial, technological, and collaborative conditions. Despite growing scholarly attention to creative labour in media industries, production design remains under-theorised as a site of labour, authorship, and creative negotiation.

This special section of Media Industries invites contributions that critically examine contemporary methodologies in production design as forms of creative labour. The section seeks to foreground production design within broader debates about media production, labour organisation, collaboration, and technological change across film, television, and related screen industries.

We welcome original scholarly contributions that engage production design through a critical media industries perspective, rather than an instrumental or purely aesthetic approach. Submissions may be contemporary or historical and may draw on qualitative, archival, ethnographic, or practice-based research methods.

Indicative themes include, but are not limited to:

1. Production design as creative labour in film and television industries
2. Contemporary production design methodologies and workflows
3. Collaboration, authorship, and hierarchy within art departments
4. Labour conditions, precarity, and professional identity in production design
5. Digital technologies, virtual production, and changing design practices
6. Global and transnational production design labour
7. Production design, material culture, and industrial constraints
8. Archival, historical, and institutional perspectives on design labour
9. Practice-based and practitioner-led research on production design
10. Teaching and training production design within media industries contexts

We particularly encourage submissions that bring global or international perspectives, address underrepresented production contexts, or adopt innovative theoretical and methodological approaches.

Submission Information

The proposed special section will comprise three to five peer-reviewed articles (5,000–7,000 words each), along with an editorial introduction. All submissions will undergo Media Industries’ standard double-blind peer review process.

Authors interested in contributing to the proposal are invited to submit an abstract of approximately 300 words, outlining the article’s focus, methodology, and relevance to the special section theme to PDREN.research@gmail.com by 30 April 2026.