Blaze Type’s 10th birthday celebration kicks off with new website design

2026 marks ten years of Blaze Type, the renowned, celebrated foundry founded by Matthieu Salvaggio in 2016. From fairly humble beginnings, having launched with three typefaces, the journey of Blaze Type isn’t typical of the typographic industry, with Matthieu himself having no formal type design education and, by his own admission, no master plan of what he wanted to do. A decade on, Blaze Type’s catalogue now boasts over 100 type families, and the foundry continues to push contemporary typography into exciting, new, variable spaces. Not to mention its custom work for brands the likes of H&M, GF Smith and BVB Borussia Dortmund. Blaze Type’s rigorous roster of thoughtful, wide-ranging typography – and equally deep understanding of a complex craft – is the result of a decade of doing, and doing what you love. “It went really fast,” Matthieu says, looking back on the last ten years, “I suppose it’s the case when you are blessed with working in a field you’re passionate about.”

Continuing to reflect, and with so many extensive type families and custom work under his belt, Matthieu knows there is plenty he’s learned since the early days, but the biggest lesson is how perpetual typefaces really are. “Type design is an everlasting work,” he says, “there’s no such thing as a ‘finished’ typeface if you ask me,” arguing that there is always room to upgrade, develop and expand – more alternatives, stylistic sets, weights, languages and so on. “We’ve become quite experienced in the engineering part of font design,” Matthieu adds, an element of the craft that he believes is often overlooked, especially by aspiring type designers. “I had no formal training in type design – I just refused to accept that was a reason not to do it,” he explains. “I learned by doing, broke things, fixed them, broke them again, that approach never really left us,” adding, “Blaze Type is still built the same way: instinct first, system second.”

To mark its birthday, Blaze Type is launching a newly updated website, partially to help its audience navigate the sheer amount of typefaces the foundry offers. “We’ve got quite a lot now,” he adds, “and it’s essential for us to define a nice, smooth, interesting way for our users to navigate them,” and, importantly, test them. The experience is super important to Blaze Type – after all, it could be someone’s first encounter with the catalogue. “Having a lot of animations and fonts can be a tricky thing on a website, and the previous one was laggy,” Matthieu recalls, “making the whole experience really painful,” something they very much wanted to sort. Type foundry websites are particularly complex, especially considering all the live type, options and filters – plus, as Matthieu explains, there is a certain creative expectation put into a site like Blaze Type. “What matters is that our users, type enthusiasts, have a great experience discovering our fonts and navigating the website,” and, as such, the site needs to serve as a great piece of design as well as “maintaining a certain level of ‘calm’” for those testing type within it. “It’s a tricky thing indeed.” 

The hard work paid off, and Blaze Type’s website update is not only an incredibly smooth experience but also one full of playful (and useful) features, including a font pairing tool and complementary mini-websites coming later in 2026. “I love how navigating a font page feels fast and smooth now, it’s such a pleasure,” Matthieu tells us, “I hope people will also spend more time on the website to discover all the articles we write,” a feature the foundry is very dedicated to, releasing several every month. “There are a lot of layers on the new website for people to discover,” as well as some hidden easter eggs for upcoming releases, so keep your eyes peeled.

The typographic industry, like the creative industry as a whole, is ever shifting in response to new technology and trends, but, seemingly, the evolution of Blaze Type and its new website is not in response to industry movements but, rather, its own interests. “Most of the things we create are built based on our own need to do things we love,” Matthieu says, not thinking past the want to have somewhere nice to host the type he’s pleased with. “We’ve entered that phase of our lives as a foundry where we’re not the new exciting player on the field, we’re amongst the seniors,” and, as a result, Blaze Type wants to use its audience and craftsmanship to platform emerging creatives. “You go to us because we have the experience to put forward new amazing talents while being super exacting,” Matthieu ends, “we built this without a map, ten years on, I’d do it exactly the same way.”