How Matthieu Salvaggio grew Blaze Type from three fonts to 100+

Matthieu Salvaggio started Blaze Type in 2016 with three type families, no formal training in type design and no business plan. A decade on, the independent French foundry distributes over 100 typeface families by designers from around the world, and has produced custom type for H&M, the Fédération Française de Football and BVB Borussia Dortmund. Salvaggio learned to draw letterforms by studying classics and being ruthlessly self-critical, and he curates the foundry’s growing catalogue the same way: guided by instinct and a soft spot for sharp serifs. An OVH data centre fire in 2021 destroyed Blaze Type’s servers and backups in a single night, forcing a rebuild that the foundry then lived with for almost five years. In this conversation, Salvaggio discusses the new blazetype.eu website, the experience of self-teaching, and why he has never found running the foundry challenging. TBI: Hey Matthieu! How are you? MS: All is well, thank you! A lot of work is being done on mini updates on the fly on the new website with the design and dev team, and lots of incoming typefaces to curate. But I can’t be happier!