Help Fund The Next Stage of TypeDrawers - Updated for 2023

James Hultquist-Todd

Updated for 2023:

For that past several years, I have been paying for TypeDrawers out-of-pocket (with donations from some amazing members). This costs me a little under $1,000 a year just to keep the doors open here.

This has led to the site languishing. I’d love to:

• Give the site a more mobile-friendly design.
• Add a section for members to contribute long form essays (a blog?) on various topics in which they are experts.
  
• Related to the last point, make the site not just a place for conversation but a compendium of type design knowledge.
• I’d also love to pay the moderation staff for their time.
  

As of now, I don’t have a budget for these sort of plans as I have no idea what it would cost to develop the site in to what I described above. Research would be required to find the right person/people to build it.

I’m considering opening up the door to sponsorships and, it seems based on a post on Mastodon, people are ok with that.
 

In the meantime, donations can be made through Paypal. 

Thank you all so much!

Marc Oxborrow

I plan to continue my support of TypeDrawers and agree with your funding goals. Would you mind sharing more details, e.g., the total you hope to raise, anticipated changes in the experience, etc.?

Thomas Phinney

I donated more than usual.

James Hultquist-Todd

Marc Oxborrow said:

I plan to continue my support of TypeDrawers and agree with your funding goals. Would you mind sharing more details, e.g., the total you hope to raise, anticipated changes in the experience, etc.?

Hi Marc,

I’ll post all of that information next week; things have been extremely busy here so I haven’t had much time for anything.

James Hultquist-Todd

Here are my tentative plans:

A refresh of the website design (specifically the mobile version) that allows for easier navigation. 

A creation of a “for sale” section to sell specimen, ephemera, and such.

I’d like to introduce some new sections for discussing type in use. I’d also like to start a blog of sorts where members could do some writing (now that there seems to be even more of a dearth of critical writing on type.

The moderators deserve some compensation for their time. I’m not sure how much but I’d like to pay them at least a few hundred dollars a year for their time.

AbiRasheed

James Hultquist-Todd said:

Here are my tentative plans:

A refresh of the website design (specifically the mobile version) that allows for easier navigation. 

Bit late to this post. Appreciate the work put into the place. With regards to the mobile version, I sure hope when you do a revamp it doesn't break the current design because some of us such as myself are on an old iOS version. About 3-4 yrs ago I believe after the revamp it did break and I was unable to view it from my ipad and so I had to leave a post to address it and it was fixed immediately, it's been working ever since. So just something to consider for those of us on old devices! Thanks!

Jani Paavola

Doubled my donation from the last time. Thanks again for existing!

AbiRasheed

So it looks like the revamp may have broken things on the old ios versions. IOS 10.3.3 on the ipad wont load typedrawers anymore. Can we fix this?  thanks

Rishi Murugesan

I'm curious as to the state of this project? Has anyone/agency been selected to help with the experience refresh? As a Product Designer with a love of type, I'd love to help out (if you need it)!

James Hultquist-Todd

The first post has been updated with preliminary information regarding TypeDrawer’s update.

Wei Huang

Happy to make a donation.

Thomas Phinney

Donated $100

Craig Eliason

Donated! Thanks to you and the moderators for this resource.

Mark Simonson

Donated last week.

James Hultquist-Todd

Thank you all so much! 

Also, if anyone has any recommendations for developers/studios/designers that would be interested in the kind of work described in the first post, please reach out. At the moment we don’t have enough to commission anyone to do the work but I’m putting together a sponsorship packet so we’ll see what happens.

Christopher Slye

James, do you or anyone else here know of a payment processor that can be set up for a recurring donation without too much trouble? (I mean, not just for me, as an option for anyone.) I’ll gladly donate, but it’s appealing to spread a smaller-but-regular contribution out over months or quarters or something. Just brainstorming.

Jens Kutilek

Ko-Fi or Patreon come to mind. I don't know the details though, like what percentage they take from donations, etc.

James Hultquist-Todd

That’s a good idea—I’ll look into it.

Stephen Coles

I've found Buy Me A Coffee to be very simple to set up, though it’s not used nearly as much as Patreon, so folks might be more accustomed to donating on that site.

Rishi Murugesan

James Hultquist-Todd said:

Thank you all so much! 

Also, if anyone has any recommendations for developers/studios/designers that would be interested in the kind of work described in the first post, please reach out. At the moment we don’t have enough to commission anyone to do the work but I’m putting together a sponsorship packet so we’ll see what happens.

I'm a product designer-turned-type designer so I'd love to help with the design! Here is a site I recently designed and built using Webflow: https://www.appleandbanana.org/ 

Let me know if you'd like to talk more. Happy to help in any way I can.