Design, Diversity & Definitions: Tré Seals on inclusion and contrast within the creative industry

Continuing our partnership with Antalis Creative Power, The A Paper explores the often neglected and undervalued topics within contemporary graphic design. For the fifth entry into the series, we invited Tré Seals – the founder of Vocal Type – to share his opinion on diversity and inclusion within the creative industry, and why challenging race and gender dominance in design has been his core mission since founding the US-based font foundry in 2016. As a type designer, I’m not only a fan of letters but the words that are built from them. And on a deeper level, I’m intrigued by the definitions and the meanings behind those words. Those definitions and meanings help me shape my reality, perception, and understanding of life in many cases. For example, I believe that everything happens for a reason and that every experience is a lesson. So I took all of my dictionaries and cut out the definitions of ‘failure’ and ‘defeat’ but highlighted the definitions of ‘lesson’ and ‘reason.’ So when I was asked to write an article about diversity and inclusion, the first thing I did was search for the definition. But before I dive in, it’s essential to understand that diversity and inclusion can’t exist separately.