Matthieu Salvaggio
Q What do you do?
“I’m the founder of Blaze Type.”
Most of my time is spent on type designing and developing our business activity: meet ups with clients, art direction for our different projects, finding new type talents to hire / distribute work.
Q What steps did you take to get to where you are now?
I studied graphic and type design at the ESAD of Valence, France. I launched Blaze Type a year after I finished my studies (2016) to distribute fonts and work with various clients on custom font design.
Q How do you stand out in your field?
My approach to font design is a mix between historical references and contemporary features. So most of my work is in a balance between a very strong font structure but with trendy shapes. This kind of work seems to be resistant to the challenge of time. Fonts I've released nearly 10 years ago are stil kicking in and being used by the world's most renowned design studios and agencies. Blaze Type as a foundry stands out for its unique approach to font licensing (super easy to understand and use), high focus on Variable Fonts and super affordable pricing. We're also super keen on doing a lot of motion, 3D and custom websites for any font family we release.
Q What are you working on right now?
Right now I'm working on several font projects, managing various designers' typeface projects and several books to teach people how to design fonts! I'm also trying to build up an interesting weekly meet up on Twitch to showcase font design and answer questions.
Q What’s your style?
I think the font family that defines my tastes and represent me best is Apoc. It's the font family that put Blaze Type "out there" and it has been defined by designers as the most popular typeface of contemporary independent design — couldn't be more proud.
Q Out of all your slashies, which one do you wish you could do more often?
To be honest none. I'm super happy with anything I do in relation to Blaze Type — which forces me to be active on so many different subjects. I have the chance of working with amazing people which allows me to focus on other things than type design (the book I mentioned earlier for example). I'm very fortunate in that manner.
Q What is frustrating you right now?
The most frustrating thing I guess would be that things take time. I have so many different ideas to associate to Blaze Type, but each takes time to develop and launch. I wish these would go faster because I'm super eager to release them!
Q If you could hire someone for $20/hour, what would you have them do to make your day easier?
Right now probably a CM to work on our Twitch / Youtube / TikTok content. There are so many things to do to develop our audience on this platform.
Q What do you wish you could have told yourself, when, and why?
Learn to design Japanese! That thing takes years and is so complex. But what an amazingly interesting design to do.
Q If you could talk to an expert to gain more insight on something, what would it be about?
Probably side business to associate with Blaze Type. Something more focused on expanding the business part of the company towards new ventures.
Q What kind of opportunities/projects are you looking for?
Something we call "Custom Font" projects: when clients come to us with the need of a specific font design for them. Whether it be a specific typeface family for a brand, a new product, new store, etc. We love to collaborate with design agencies or directly with clients to design fonts tailored to meet their needs.
Q Describe your ideal job/client/collaboration.
So far we've been super fortunate with the clients we have worked with at Blaze Type. Each and every of them was amazing and we had the chance to build a strong and great relationship with each of them. So our (my) ideal client is someone that is easy to talk to, who answers all the questions we have about their project (the more we know the better it is for us to nail the design), who's fast on answering or giving feedbacks (again it makes our lives easier and makes the work go smoother). Basically a client with whom you can communicate easily and with whom there are no stones unturned is usually an amazing partner to work with. In the end we collaborate with our clients so we have to build such a relationship.
Q What is your rate?
So usually we charge for a budget and don't do hourly rates and since a budget varis greatly from a project to another we've have priced work ranging from 1000€ to 1 000 000€+ It all depends really on the kind of typeface family or fonts a client needs/want. Let's say that a font family covering Latin Languages (around 500 different glyph to design) in a single style (Regular for example) is usually in the range of 6000€. It can be less or more depending on the complexity of the design, the amount of different languages covered, the features added, etc.
Q How should someone approach you about working together?
Pretty simple, send an email to hello@blazetype.eu or directly DM by Instagram. The intro should simply be about what project you're on and we'll handle the rest together: set up a date to talk about the project and how we can work together!
Q Who is a creative you admire?
I would advise to check Léon Hugues and Hugo Jourdan. They are both amazing designer to work with
Q Oh! and… how do you stay creative?
Practice makes perfect & coffee breaks are important.
This member profile was originally published in December 2022.