Tré Seals (born 1993) is an American

type designer Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below. A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...

, creative director, and typographer based in Accokeek, Maryland. He is best known as the designer behind Vocal Type, a

type foundry A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and ...

that develops fonts inspired by minority cultures and international

protest movements A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration, or remonstrance) is a public act of objection, disapproval or dissent against political advantage. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate ...

. Seals is one of the only few African-American type designers in the world.

Early life and education

Seals’ parents ran a

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from ''soil'' by re ...

manufacturing business on a

family farm A family farm is generally understood to be a farm owned and/or operated by a family. It is sometimes considered to be an Estate (land), estate passed down by inheritance. Although a recurring conceptual model, conceptual and archetype, archet ...

outside of Washington, D.C. He graduated from

Stevenson University Stevenson University is a private university in Baltimore County, Maryland with two campuses, one in Stevenson, Maryland, Stevenson and one in Owings Mills, Maryland, Owings Mills. The university enrolls approximately 3,615 undergraduate and g ...

with a degree in visual communication design. Seals is a two-time childhood

brain tumor A brain tumor (sometimes referred to as brain cancer) occurs when a group of cells within the Human brain, brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. There are two main types of tumors: malignant (cancerous) tumors and benign ...

survivor and credits his experiences with debilitating headaches early in life as a key motivation to pursue a career in art and design.

Career

After initially getting his start as a freelance graphic designer and working for a staffing agency The Creative Group for a year and a half after graduating college, Seals established a brand studio called Seals and a type foundry Vocal Type. Vocal Type's first and most popular release, VTC Martin, named after

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...

, was directly inspired by the “I Am a Man” posters first used during the

Memphis Sanitation Strike The Memphis sanitation strike began on February 12, 1968, in response to the deaths of sanitation workers Death of Echol Cole and Robert Walker, Echol Cole and Robert Walker. The deaths served as a breaking point for more than 1,300 African ...

in 1968. After the rise of the

Black Lives Matter movement Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that aims to highlight racism, discrimination and racial inequality experienced by black people, and to promote anti-racism. Its primary concerns are police brutalit ...

in 2020, VTC Martin became a popular choice for signs, exhibitions, and murals connected with the movement, including the Black Lives Matter mural in Newark, New Jersey. Other typefaces released by Vocal Type reference graphics used in

W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relativel ...

data visualizations,

1989 Tiananmen Square protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known within China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led Demonstration (people), demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, lasting from 15 April to 4 June 1989. After weeks of unsucces ...

, women's suffrage movement, 1963

March On Washington For Jobs and Freedom The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (commonly known as the March on Washington or the Great March on Washington) was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic righ ...

, and WWII anti-fascist Resistance flyers. Seals’ other notable works include logotype for

Stacey Abrams Stacey Yvonne Abrams (; born December 9, 1973) is an American politician, lawyer, voting rights activist, and author who served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, serving as minority leader from 2011 to 2017. A member ...

’s 2022 campaign for the governor of Georgia and design for ''Spike'', a 2021 book about

Spike Lee Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and author. His work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary ...

. He has also consulted on typography for Colin Kaepernick and the ''TIME'' magazine. He authored and designed a 2022 book ''Dream In Color: 30 Posters of Power by 30 Black Creatives.''

Awards and achievements

Seals is a winner of the

ADC Young Guns The Art Directors Club of New York is an organization for art directors in New York City. It was founded in 1920, and has grown as an industry group, promoting art directors' work through exhibitions and awards, including the annual DESI award fo ...

17 competition awarded by Art Directors Club. In 2021 he was named one of recipients of the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

's inaugural Black Design Visionaries grant program awarded in partnership with Meta’s

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

. He was also recognized as one of top designers under the age of 35 elevating the medium of

typography Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...

Type Directors Club The Type Directors Club (TDC) is an international organization devoted to typography and type design, founded in 1946 in New York City. Mission TDC believes that type drives culture, and that culture drives type—and is dedicated to cataloging ...

in the Ascenders competition of 2018. A solo exhibit of his work titled "Characters: Type in Action" was held at The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) in 2024–2025.

References

External links

Tré Seals

Vocal Type
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seals, Tré 1993 births American typographers and type designers Creative directors African-American graphic designers African-American designers Living people American designers