Vocal Type
In case you missed it, please read the story of Vocal Type. This page is reserved for elaborating on my current focus within this creative research practice. ¶ As you’ll read or have read, in the story of Vocal Type, I became a foundry owner overnight. Because Vocal Type went from a side project to a full-blown career within the course of a week, I never had the time to be as intentional with our brand identity as I was with the other work we were creating. So, the majority of this page will be devoted to exploring our story, sharing ideas we’ve stolen, ideas we’ve avoided, and where our identity ended up. ¶
Defining Who We Are
To be completely honest with you, because I design visual identities for other people and companies, I’m never in the room when they go through the process of defining themselves. When you come to me, you should, for the most part, already have this figured out. I forgot that. And as a result, I began designing our visual identity before defining who we are. ¶ This resulted in two very different visual identities, both of which, I realized, are a bit stereotypical, for lack of a better term. They seem stereotypical in that they both look and feel like protest branding designed by Obey Giant and Studio Number One. Now, I mean no offense to Shepard “Obey” Fairey and his design studio. However, as a person of color, I feel that certain aesthetics perpetuate this stereotype that in order to be an activist or in order to protest, one must be loud and bold, and I don’t believe that to be true. ¶ The first wordmark we designed was so bold that it couldn’t be printed in small sizes. And when I started working through the second wordmark, a stencil, I couldn’t find the right balance between approachable and militant. ¶ It wasn’t until I was able to define who we are, at our core, beyond a font foundry, that everything fell into place. ¶
Thanks to W.E.B. Du Bois
Three weeks have passed since our second Vocal Type exhibition opened at the Museum of Design Atlanta. During the opening on September 19, 2024, a panel discussion moderated by David Tann, founder of Tantrum Agency, featured a question about one of our font families, VTC Du Bois. That question brought me back to the lessons I learned from W.E.B. Du Bois during the development of VTC Du Bois. ¶ Du Bois was not only a prolific author and scholar, but also an activist and sociologist whose work deeply influenced my understanding of identity. Through his concept of Double Consciousness, I found a way to express my own racial and cultural experiences—navigating the tension between two identities: one grounded in Black heritage, the other shaped by a society marked by prejudice. This duality has always been part of me, but it was Du Bois’ work that gave me the language to articulate it. ¶ Even while running Vocal Type, I didn’t consider myself an activist. But in researching the life and works of Du Bois, I discovered a different kind of activism. While studying the infographics Du Bois and his students created for the 1900 Paris Exposition, I came to understand that activism doesn’t always take the form of marches or protest signs. Sometimes, it’s about making space in industries where our culture is underrepresented, using design as a powerful tool for change. ¶
“We are movement connectors centering the stories of marginalized communities through typography.”
After finally defining who we are, we realized our identity mattered less than the work we were doing. This shift in focus led us to create a wordmark that uses a grotesque sans-serif typeface, originally developed for the Black Lives Matter Foundation, and incorporates references to nearly 400 protest signs and murals from around the world—places like New York, Gaza, Brazil, Korea, and beyond. ¶ While our mark may appear as simply an exclamation point to some, it holds a much deeper meaning for us. Initially, we considered using the Greek letter Delta (Δ), a symbol of change, as part of our design. In the spirit of transformation, we rotated the Delta to form a ‘V,’ representing “Vocal.” However, we quickly realized that this explanation would be too lengthy and unclear for anyone who viewed it. By filling in the whitespace of the inverted Delta and adding a circle beneath it, we created a symbol that, to us, represents the change we hope to inspire in the world. ¶
That’s all for now! At the moment, we’re developing the new Vocal Type site, expanding previously released typefaces, and expanding upon the stories we’ve already told. More to come! ¶