We finally…finally…got the incentives assembled, the website redone, and the typeface uploaded and made available for download. Thanks for your patience with this last, most important piece of the process. Hooray Chattanooga!

The Kickstart campaign is fully funded at $10,000 thanks to the fine folks of Chattanooga and an international design and arts community that gave a damn and gave a buck.

Times Free Press reporter Kate Harrison puts together a fantastic piece about Chatype and got it on the front page! It was exciting to have such a great article written about the effort, but for a typeface story to appear big and bold above the fold was shockingly great. This was pivotal in kicking off an exciting media cycle that included Time.com, Monocle, and the Wolff Olins blog.

The team invites local designers, city officials, friends, and anyone who wants to join, to the Camp House to hear the story and the intention behind the movement. Lots of reporters come out to make it even more exciting. That was definitely a turning point.

After a few weeks of filming, lots of fun interviews, and growing anticipation, the Chatype Kickstarter is launched!

The fantastic four (self-proclaimed) set plans in motion to continue the work with a Kickstarter campaign for funding and promotion, a forum to present the work to the community, and a party when everything finally comes together.

Jeremy, Robbie, DJ, and DJ’s business partner Jonathan Mansfield (D+J) make plans to launch Chatype at 48Hr Launch, a local entrepreneurship event hosted by The Company Lab. The four assemble a team of developers, photographers, designers, and interested parties to pitch in and get a website, promo video, and the initial foundations of the initiative built. While the team doesn’t win that event, they got things moving.

Jeremy seeks out and connects with Chattanooga’s second resident typeface designer, Robbie de Villiers (Wilton Foundry) and they begin discussing making the dream a reality by conducting research and making initial sketches of what will grow into Chatype.

Typeface designer Jeremy Dooley (Insigne Design) and creative director DJ Trischler (D+J) have a cordial cup of coffee at Pasha Coffee & Tea in St. Elmo. They chat about many things, a Chatt-exclusive typeface being one of them.

Many years ago, the likes of Paul Rustand, Brian May, and other creative Chattanoogans envision the day Chattanooga will be ready for its own typeface.