10/09/2026
Meet the 5 laureates of the 2026 Ignition Award 🔥
Back in April we launched the Ignition Award, our first initiative to support the next generation of type designers. Applications closed on 31 July, and what landed in our inbox went well beyond what we expected: nearly 100 applicants, students and early-career designers from all over the world, working in scripts the industry still doesn’t serve enough.
Five have been selected.
Each receives a €1,000 grant, six months of mentorship, and a distribution contract with Blaze Type. Here they are, and we couldn’t be more proud.
— Marika
A multiscript serif with Book and Display cuts, Bold and Italic. It sits somewhere between chancery handwriting and lapidary stone engraving: cursive and gestural, with sharp dry terminals.
— Escada
A display family in Light, Regular and Bold, plus a variable version. Drawn from 20th-century advertising lettering, it sets dynamic brush-pen forms against stencil-like elements.
— Laisen Casual
The handwriting style of Laisen, a Thai and Latin family inspired by Bangkok’s vernacular signage. It comes straight out of marker signwriting: fast, expressive, and visibly shaped by the hand.
jaishankar — Tac
An informal editorial family of 13 styles, made with a folded pen that gives quick, energetic shapes. It looks back to Tamil book covers and magazines of the 1960s–80s and their paste-up composition.
— Novo Relic
A bilingual display typeface reviving Ktav Beinoni, a largely forgotten medieval non-cursive Hebrew script, paired with 12th-century Latin Proto-Gothic. A contemporary reading rather than a strict revival.
A huge thank you to our jury — , .hugues, , .otf, and Matthieu Salvaggio — for their time and care in reviewing every application.
Discover the laureates and their work → https://blazetype.eu/ignition-award/laureates/
