Founded in 2002 by graphic designer Armin Vit as an online forum for issues related to graphic design, Speak Up is a stylish, easy-to-navigate website that overflows with content. Since its inception, there have been more than 1,500 posts — including reviews, discussions, essays, and interviews with high-profile designers such as Stefan Sagmeister — along with 37,000 comments submitted by readers. Lively and interactive, most articles are sharply illustrated, but the blog’s key visual factor is Word It, a monthly submission opportunity where contributors graphically respond to an assigned word, such as "Blah" or "Oops." Published using the Moveable Type platform, Speak Up is a division of UnderConsideration, which also publishes the Design Encyclopedia (a user-built design-reference site), Brand New (reporting on branding and corporate identity), and Quipsologies (witticisms about business and culture). Vit and his wife/collaborator Bryony Gomez-Palacio, both immigrants from Mexico, are continually constructing ways to utilize the web in order to keep their readers informed and entertained.

Speak Up is featured in Design Life Now: National Design Triennial 2006 at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York through July 29 and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston from September 8 to January 6, 2008.