In 2018, the v.1 staff established the following mission and values:

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. v.1 strives to create space and time for conversations across diverse disciplines, cultures, and perspectives. Its form and content are endlessly flexible.

v.1 believes in accessibility and seeks to be representative of and relevant to its community.
v.1 believes in dialogue and hopes to respect and bridge divides through active listening, reflection, and free and fair expression.
v.1 believes in credibility and is driven by rigorous, meaningful content.

v.1 believes in transparency and seeks to dissolve barriers between students, the institution, the city, and the world.
v.1 believes in uncertainty and wishes to learn, adapt, and forgive our imperfections together.
v.1 aims to highlight the experience of a RISD education and to record RISD’s history.

v.1 was born in 2015 in a RISD graduate course on experimental publishing. Diane Lee (MFA GD 2016) conceived its name—v.1, as in, always “volume 1”—to signal its ambition to be infinitely flexible in form, content, and concept. In 2018, v.1 shifted to a co-curricular and welcomed undergraduate staff and contributors. It’s now a RISD-wide student publication welcoming contributions from students, faculty, staff, and guests from afar.

^{The views and opinions expressed in v.1 are those of the individual contributors and do not reflect those of the editors or the official policy or position of Rhode Island School of Design.}