Revilatization Through Graphic Design

Earlier this week, we looked at campaigns to re-brand the city of Cleveland through sloganeering. Stone writes about an effort to re-brand the city of Chattanooga through purely graphic means, by developing a custom typeface to reflect the city's identity.

According to Stone, "The goal is to help the city and its businesses forge a distinct and cohesive identity through custom typeface, sending a visual message to the world that Chattanooga-a rapidly growing city in the midst of a creative renaissance-is 'more than just your average Southern town.'"

Led by brand consultant D.J. Trischler and typeface designer Jeremy Dooley, with collaborators including another typeface designer and a local historian, the result of the team's work is a new typeface they call Chatype. "Dooley calls the final style a 'geometric slab serif.' The 'slabs are inspired by the industrial past. The geometric aspect is to add a sense of futurism,' playing to the city's aspirations of becoming the 'Silicon Valley of the East Coast' with an economy fueled by technology and startups," writes Stone.

Chattanooga's public sector seems to be on-board with the project and the team hopes to see, "Chatype popping up on signage, business cards, emails, and websites published by the city government. In the long term, the team would love to see their typeface across street signs, sewer grades, police cars, and firetrucks."