World Braille Day is celebrated every year on January 4th because it is Louis Braille’s birthday - the inventor of braille.

Louis was born in 1809 in France. He lost his sight at a young age and was sent to the Royal Institution for Blind Youth. It was at the Institute in 1821 that Louis was first introduced to the idea of using a coded system of raised dots.

Charles Barbier, a captain in Napoleon's army, visited the school to demonstrate his 'night writing'. This was a tactile system designed for soldiers to send and receive messages at night without speaking. It used raised dots and dashes rather than actual letters.

Louis quickly realised how useful this system could be, but thought it was too complicated. When he was just 15 years old, he created the system we know today as braille based on a system of writing developed by Charles Barbier.

Over the years braille was tweaked to make it easier to read, and now it’s used all over the world and is being incorporated in to so many new and exciting products.


Attach A Tag are announcing an exciting new project that we've been keeping under wraps, and there was no better day to make the announcement! We are now able to offer braille on tags and are in the process of developing a way in which these tags can be utilised to help those living independently who are blind or visually impaired.

Braille tags will be officially launched later this year but we welcome any bespoke enquiries in the meantime - [email protected]