Diversity Type Project: Gary Curzai

posted by Robyn Pitts May 24, 2021

On Friday May 21st 2021, people across the globe celebrated World Diversity Day. We were proud to mark the occasion by launching the Diversity Type for download in collaboration with Distillery. The project is a unique opportunity to build awareness, by unifying communities and cultures, and celebrating the differences in people’s lived experiences. “Diversity is shown in this typeface through the variety of people who have contributed, inclusion is then how we weave the typeface into society and give those people a voice” says Steve Wheen, Founder of Distillery. Today, we chat with participant, Gary Curzai, who’s designs for the letters ‘P’ and ‘Y’ included in the font.Having grown up in India, design was not something that was widely available in the education system that Gary was part of. In-fact, the first time he heard the word Graphic design, in a career sense, was when he was 17 years old. “I was amazed that this could be something I could do for a living,” comments Gary. However, he followed his passion and went on to study a BA in Graphic Design at Middlesex University in London. It was during his university studies that he was introduced to type design, and “immediately fell in love with it”. “Growing up in India there is such an amazing variety of dialects and writing scripts, after studying in England and travelling back to Bombay I realised I was living in a world full of amazing fonts and typography.”

Gary’s submission for the Diversity Type project is part of his Tribal Type project, and is based upon the beautiful artwork of the Warli Tribe; an indigenous tribe in Western India. The font was created as a way to help promote the lifestyle of the people and help this style of art find its place in a modern world. Out of respect for the tribe’s art and people, the design has not been used in any commercial projects. However, he has used the font in the branding of a flea market he helped curate, Aarey Adivasi Market, and in his work with The Nazareth Foundation, who help empower tribal women through various programs and activities. Gary states; “I feel comfortable sharing this font with the Distillery type project because the proceeds go to charity and the topic of diversity is crucially important in modern day India. India has such a vast variety of diverse cultures that can empower the nation to become something beautiful rather than the direction it is moving in now.”

Extensive research is extremely important to Gary when he is creating, and absorbing multiple perspectives helps him in his design process. He emphasises that “trusting himself” has been a vital part in his journey to becoming a better designer. His work in India aims to use traditional forms of art and implement it into modern design. “Whether it is language or visual communication, I believe India has a lot to contribute to the global design world because of its vast culture. More importantly I feel as designers and communication artists, it is imperative that we use our skills in meaningful ways that help us move towards a more empathy-driven society through accessible ways of sharing knowledge and information.”

Currently, Gary is working on a range of projects with The YP Foundation (an intersectional feminist Nonprofit Organisation based in India) designing toolkits and branding youth advocacy networks. His ethos as a designer is to better the world we live in by providing better basic human rights and access to services, and conserving and protecting nature and its inhabitants. Looking to the future, Gary hopes to continue working on his Tribal Type project, with an aim to create a unique typeface for each different Tribal art form in India. Through the project he aspires to preserve and evolve these artforms to be used in different ways in our ever-changing modernised world. Alongside this, Gary would like to work with these tribal artists and create works of art that incorporate his typefaces with their art. He concludes; “This project is just a stepping stone to try to help empower these local artists to be recognised and be able to make a living doing what they do best”.