EXPLORING DIVERSITY - What difference does a FONT make?

Font Designer Tre’ Seals

Tre’ Seals is the founder of Vocal Type Co.,  a type foundry specifically created for “creatives of color... and women...who feel they don’t have a say in their industry.” Tre is an award-winning designer who creates fonts from historical references from minority cultures.

Font: Carrie (large title font)

Exhibit: Beyond Supply & Demand: Duke Economics Students Present 100 Years of American Women’s Suffrage (2021 Duke University Libraries)

Carrie was inspired by signage used in a parade in 1915 led by Carrie Chapman Catt, and was perfect for this exhibition exploring the 100^th anniversary of the suffrage movement.

Font: Eva (large title font)
Exhibit: Our History, Our Voice: Latinx at Duke/Nuestra Historia, Nuestra Voz: Latinas/os/es/x en (2022 Duke University Libraries)

Like Carrie, Eva was inspired by suffrage banners, but this references Buenos Aires in 1957. The font is named after Eva Perón, the First Lady of Argentina from 1946-1952 and a politician and activist in her own right. Eva was another excellent fit as a font to support the topics of this exhibition including the history of Latinx social and educational issues as well as civil rights.

Font: Ruben (larger title font in above image)
Exhibit: James Van Der Zee and Michael Francis Blake: Picturing Blackness in the 1920s(2021 Duke University Libraries)

Ruben is a font inspired by journalist Rubén Salazar, a civil rights activist who covered the Chicano movement in the 1960s and was killed during a march against the Vietnam War in 1970.