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ABOUT

Alessandro Butti

Italian designer and teacher (b. Turin, 1893, d. Turin, 1959), who spent most of his life designing type at Nebiolo, where he was also art director. He headed Studio Artistico della Nebiolo from 1936-1952. Bio by Gio Fuga in 2010. His> typefaces:

• Paganini (under the direction of Raffaello Bertieri, 1928), a very elegant roman family. Jessica Svendsen digitized this in 2010 under the same name. Patrick Griffin and Kevin Alan King created a revival at Canada Type in 2001 simply called Paganini.
• Semplicità (1930), a sans serif family with a fresh feel that includes an Ombra version. This Futura-like family was revived in a 16-style family by Ben Blom called Simplo (2011). Bill Troop and Patrick Griffin created the carefully executed and powerful Semplicita Pro family (2011, Canada Type). Semplicità (2015) by Studio di Lena is another digital revival. Studio Gothic (2017, by Francesco Canovaro, Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini and Andrea Tartarelli) is an 8-style geometric sans family based on Semplicita.
• Quirinus (1939).
• Landi (1939-1943): Butti designed the slab serif Landi Echo (with inclined inline). The corresponding outline, Landi Linear, was designed by Aldo Novarese. Landi Echo was digitally revived in 2011 under the same name by Claude Pelletier.
• Hastile (1941). [Others say this was done in 1952.]
• Athenaeum (1945, Nebiolo, initials by Aldo Novarese), a roman typeface with schizophrenic M and Q letters.
• Normandia (1946, with Aldo Novarese). This fatface didone was published in 1949 at Nebiolo in three styles, tono, corsivo and contornata. For a digital revival of the entire family, see Normandia (2021, by Patrick Griffin and Hans van Maanen at Canada type).
• Rondine (1948, with Aldo Novarese). There is a digital version called Bella Donna (2004, Rebecca Alaccari at Canada Type).
• Augustea Open and Augustea, both all caps fonts, were done in 1951. They were the forerunners of the full font Nova Augustea (done with Aldo Novarese). For revivals of Augustea Open, see Openface No. 2 (2012, Softmaker), and the earlier SoftMaker typefaces Openface and A850 Deco.
• Microgramma (1952, with Aldo Novarese) is a checkbook font. Novarese would use this as model for his famous Eurostile (1962).
• Cigogna (1950 or 1954): a quill pen lettering script.
• Fluidum (1937-1951): a script with heavy contrasts. Revived by Ralph M. Unger as Butti (2011).
• Titano (1929). Original characters in lead and wood. Thanks to Paolo Cadeddu's research, we now know the exact date of Titano's design, 1929. The shadowed version was added in the 1940s. Titano was digitally revived in Black, Shadowed and Inline versions by Paolo Cadeddu between 2019 and 2021. In 2022, Cadeddu published the story of Titano in Author of L'Italia nascosta---Oggetti, grafica e caratteri usi e costumi (translated: Hidden Italy---Graphic objects and typefaces, uses and customs).
• Neon Ombrato, using Giulio di Milano's Neon from 1935.
• Quirinus (1939).
• Juliet (1955), done with Aldo Novarese.
• Recta. Well, he did the first sketches, and Aldo Novarese finished the font in 1958.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Alessandro Butti
 [Designer info]
Klingspor Museum page
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INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Type design in Italy ⦿ Neon tube or faux neon typefaces ⦿