Alessandro Butti and Aldo Novarese at Società Nebiolo

In the history of twentieth-century type design, few partnerships have been as formative – or as quietly complex – as that of Alessandro Butti and Aldo Novarese at the Società Nebiolo type foundry in Turin. 

Spanning roughly two decades from the late 1930s through the 1950s, their collaboration produced some of the most distinctive and enduring typefaces of the Italian modernist tradition. Together they shaped the visual identity of one of Europe’s most respected foundries, even as their working relationship was at times complicated by questions of credit, hierarchy, and contrasting temperaments.

Società Nebiolo and the Turin tradition

The Società Nebiolo, established in Turin in 1878, had by the early twentieth century grown into one of Italy’s premier manufacturers of typographic machinery and typefaces.

By the interwar period, Nebiolo had established an in-house design studio, the Officina Tipoartistica, which gave its type designers the unusual luxury of working in a structured, well-resourced environment rather than as independent freelancers as was more typical in the industry. This institutional setting was the crucible in which the Butti–Novarese relationship would be formed – which, in turn, would influence the direction of Italian print culture. 

Alessandro Butti: the senior hand

Alessandro Butti (1893–1959) joined Nebiolo in the 1920s and eventually became the director of its design studio. A meticulous craftsman trained in the older traditions of punchcutting and lettering, Butti represented continuity with classical type design even as he worked in a rapidly modernising industry. He was a disciplined, somewhat reserved figure who understood type design primarily as a technical and aesthetic discipline rooted in historical precedent. 

His early independent work included the elegant Semplicità (1930), a refined geometric sans-serif that demonstrated his ability to engage with modernist trends without abandoning formal rigour. Reminiscent of geometrics like Futura, this style of type design fell out of favour in Italy due to its association with the Fascist regime. 

Butti’s approach was characterised by careful revision and a tendency to absorb influence gradually. He admired the precision of German and Swiss type design without simply imitating it, seeking instead to inflect modernist forms with a distinctly Italian sensibility – warmer, more calligraphic, less austere. This philosophy would prove foundational to the studio’s output and would leave a lasting impression on his younger colleague.

Aldo Novarese: the rising talent

Aldo Novarese (1920–1995) entered the Nebiolo studio as a young man in the late 1930s, initially as a draughtsman. He had studied at the Turin school of graphic art and brought to his work an enthusiasm and prolific energy that complemented, and at times contrasted with, Butti’s more measured pace. 

Where Butti was careful and classical, Novarese was inventive and ambitious – captivated by the expressive range of letterforms. He would go on to design over one hundred typefaces across his career, making him one of the most productive type designers of the twentieth century.

In the early years of his tenure at Nebiolo, Novarese worked under Butti’s direction and the two began collaborating formally in the 1940s. The nature of that collaboration was layered: Butti provided seniority, institutional authority, and the guiding aesthetic framework, while Novarese contributed draftsmanship, creative momentum, and an openness to commercial trends in lettering and display type.

The collaborative typefaces

Their most celebrated joint work is Microgramma (1952), a geometric sans-serif designed in capitals only and possessing a distinctly futuristic, technical character that aligned well with the optimistic postwar interest in science and modernity. 

Microgramma became widely influential and remains in use today, often associated with science fiction aesthetics and industrial design. It was extended into a full upper- and lower-case typeface by Novarese in 1961 under the name Eurostile, which achieved even broader international success.

The question of authorship around Microgramma is instructive of the tensions inherent in the Butti-Novarese partnership. The typeface was released under both their names, but the proportions of contribution were never transparently documented. Novarese, writing later in life, suggested that the design originated substantially with him, while institutional practice at the time tended to credit the studio director – Butti – as lead author. This ambiguity was not unusual in foundry culture of the era, where the director of a type studio often received primary credit regardless of how collaborative or subordinate his actual involvement had been. It would become a source of frustration for Novarese, who felt that his contributions were consistently understated while Butti received greater public recognition.

Other collaborative works from this period include Augustea (1951), a roman display face drawing on classical inscriptional letterforms, and Fontanesi (1954), a more decorative script-influenced design. These typefaces reveal the range of the studio’s output. From sharp, epigraphic roman capitals to experimental display forms, Butti and Novarese together covered a remarkable breadth of typographic territory.

Hierarchy, credit, and legacy

When Butti died in 1959, Novarese became director of the Officina Tipoartistica and finally assumed the recognition his productivity had long merited. The subsequent decades saw him produce celebrated designs including Novarese (1980) and Esprit (1985); proof of his tremendous talent. 

Yet the relationship between the two men should not be reduced to one of suppression and resentment. By most accounts, Butti served as a genuine mentor who gave Novarese access to a serious professional environment, instilled in him rigorous standards of letterform construction, and provided the institutional backing that allowed their collaborative work to reach an international audience. The typefaces they produced together are not the work of a reluctant subordinate working under an indifferent superior, but of two designers who, whatever their personal and professional asymmetries, shared a deep commitment to the craft.

The Nebiolo foundry closed following bankruptcy in 1978. But the typefaces produced in its Officina Tipoartistica – many of them bearing the names of Butti and Novarese – remain vivid documents of a particular moment in Italian type design: confident, technically accomplished, and caught between the weight of classical tradition and the pull of an accelerating modern world.

At Skylona we hold type specimens and other printed ephemera for Società Nebiolo, many featuring the work of Butti and Novarese: