We met Renee Seward on campus at the University of Cincinnati – her alma mater – in the DAAP building, where she teaches, creates, and collaborates to impact the community. Her See Word Design business makes digital tools to help people achieve reading literacy. She identifies with, serves, and encourages people who are struggling to learn something new, and is always striving to challenge what is possible today.

Interview by Kelly Carrigan. Photography by Katie Ferchen.

Tell us about yourself. What’s your connection to Cincinnati?

I’m a professor at the University of Cincinnati in the Communication Design program. I’m on my 12th year teaching here and I am also the Program Coordinator. My grandfather owns one of the oldest Black-owned businesses, so we are, like, rooted and grounded from here.

What motivates you to create as a graphic design artist?

I just have a lot of curiosity; I’m constantly asking questions, and it gets me to ask visual questions. One of the passions that I have is my business, See Word Design. We design digital tools to help struggling readers.

The idea for this project came about when my best friend’s son was struggling to read. He told me of his experience, and it made me ask all sorts of questions: Why is this? What is this? Then I started making stuff in response.

Can you tell us more about that?

He’s dyslexic, and he kept saying that the reason why he was failing tests at school was because of the way that they laid out the page. I’m a graphic designer and I’m like, “Hey, I can make a template!” I began researching it and asking “what if” questions, and while it wasn’t the page layout, I did realize that there are branding strategies that could possibly be used to help someone learn early reading skills.

As a designer, what’s surprised you about that journey?

This is kind of a crossover, where design meets literacy, and to most, it is an odd connection. I will go to reading conferences and they’re like, “What are you doing here? You’re a designer.” But, I’m also known as a typographer – a typographer is someone who specializes in how words are placed on a page to help someone understand, and there’s a lot of relationships between typography and literacy. I guess I cross those intersections to create digital tools that challenge what exists today.

How has See Words evolved over the years? Don’t you have an international presence, as well?

I don’t do it all by myself. I collaborate with the College of Education. Dr. Beth O’Brien – she’s an educational psychologist – was here at the university and then she moved to Singapore, and with her being over there, we formed connections. While I was still running pilot studies here to understand how our app was working on kindergartners, she was able to talk to five different schools in Singapore that are teaching bilingual kids, and we began testing it over there.

It is the power of many and not just the power of one that helps things go.

There are others that need help with literacy. There are adults that have English as a second language, and when you look at the statistics, one of the biggest barriers to people that don’t have jobs is that they can’t read. And then I look at the quantity of African Americans in prison, and most of them have struggled to read, and I’m like, “So, what can I do to help?” We have developed new fonts, and the fonts in and of themselves are supportive tools to help train and supplement as people are learning to read. Whether you’re young or old, it can all be supplemented anywhere reading anything. It’s pretty exciting.

What have been some of the challenges that you’ve encountered during your service and teaching efforts to taking on a real-world problem like literacy?

There’s a lot of challenges, and my business partner, Nancy Koors, says I have great patience, because it’s definitely been a long journey to even accomplish what we have accomplished. One was getting the schools to trust me, as a designer, to come in and run a research study about reading. But partnering with the College of Education and different organizations here on campus helped open those doors. Finding the funding and writing the grant in a right way was a challenge, but again, the power is in collaboration. It is the power of many and not just the power of one that helps things go.

Can you talk more about your passion for teaching?

I love helping people, especially in those moments when the light bulbs come on and they’re able to understand it. Being a professor also allows me to teach, but then I’m also able to conduct research studies where I go into after-school programs and help with teaching literacy. The complaints or gripes and the “aha!” moments all kind of feel the same between them, but the payoff for me is because I need to be in a role of service. So being a professor – and even leading the startup – allows me to serve people who are struggling in different ways and are curious to learn something new.

The light bulbs turning on – it’s like a new beginning. You’re constantly creating something that wasn’t there before.

In terms of design, I love it when there are no limits or rules and I can just go in and purely put odd things together and ask “what if” questions. In terms of light bulbs coming on, I feel as though I’ve truly helped someone get over a barrier or achieve something new, and that gives me fulfillment. I used to work in the industry for several years, and it was good to meet a client’s need, but it feels even more satisfying when I am helping someone accomplish a new skill.

What other skills in your own life and in your service do you think are important when it comes to overcoming barriers?

So, oddly enough I never learned how to swim. I sometimes forget what it’s like to not know, so I decided to enroll myself in swimming classes so that I could learn – and I was really bad at it. It helps me understand the pain points that people feel when they’re given a challenge or something that they can’t overcome. This swim teacher was on it with the drills and the practicing and the arm movements. I even go to a trainer now to box. I like to run.

I feel as though I’m here so I can usher in a much larger body of people of color into this profession that has not diversified itself enough.

All of those things have hard barriers, but there’s always that instructor there that helps me get over it. In my own personal life, I like doing those things, because it allows my “aha!” moment to go on and it reminds me of what it feels like not to know or understand. So when my students are experiencing it or the readers that I’m designing for are experiencing it, it’s never like, “You don’t get it yet?” Of course I understand. I can’t even swing my arms right through the water. I get it! You know? [Laughs.]

What’s your future vision for yourself look like?

Some people say, “Renee, are you going to leave this program because you know your business is taking off?” I don’t think that I’ll ever stop teaching, because I love it. I’d also like to keep asking curious questions that challenge the status quo about how people learn. My goal is just to create – keep making things and collaborating with people who can test them out to see whether they can have an impact.

Another very important component to all of this being a success is being here at the university. They have something called the Venture Lab over at the 1819 Innovation Hub, and without their support this would’ve gone nowhere because they gave me a huge amount of funding. They kept helping steer this so it could turn into a product as well as a business.

Who have been some significant mentors for you?

I have to say my parents. My dad is a chemical engineer. He worked for Procter & Gamble and has patents on many of the products that they have there. He was one of the few African Americans hired at his stage of the game. I am the only African American female here in the school of design, and the first African American female here ever tenured.

How does that resonate with you?

It’s a surprise, but I’m also honored, because in the field of graphic design there’s about a 3% representation of African Americans in the field as a whole. The fact that I am the first in this genre is not a surprise when we only have 3% representation, but I feel as though I’m here so I can usher in a much larger body of people of color into this profession that has not diversified itself enough. My dad was inside of that in engineering, and so I can look at him and lean on him for advice on how to deal with different situations. He’s also an inventor of products. My mom is a reading teacher and taught first grade, so she understands firsthand how to teach something. I always said when you put a reading teacher and a product engineer together, you get me. [Laughs.]

Here inside of DAAP, mentors to me have been Nancy, my business partner. She’s created and helped launched a lot of businesses. When she walks into a room and we interact with people, she shows me how to be a woman in leadership. She is kind, speaks her mind, and is not afraid to ask the hard questions.

In graduate school, Meredith Davis – who is instrumental in the field of design – was my thesis chair, and she was someone that came up in design when there were fewer women. She can own the room like a boss. I like watching it. [Laughs.]

Someone that I never got to really interact with, but still I admire is Sylvia Harris. She was an African American graphic designer who had a lot of influences on the design of the census balance and she was in the service role of helping people. As a young designer, I’m like, “I want to be like that!” I want to be this African American woman who uses design skills to make a social impact on people.

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Learning to Swim: Renee Seward on Design, Literacy, and More