Modulo
Superness · Alessio D'Ellena · 2023
A 2023 digitisation of an unreleased 1970s Nebiolo typeface, designed by a collective of Milanese modernists including Bruno Munari and Franco Grignani, whose letterforms are generated strictly from a 7:10 ratio grid with no optical correction.
About
Originally conceived for the Nebiolo foundry in Turin during the late 1960s and never released, Modulo was developed by a group including Bruno Munari, Giancarlo Iliprandi, Ilio Negri and Franco Grignani, drawing on scientific readability research from the University of Geneva. Every curve and stroke is geometrically determined from a basic skeleton laid over a grid matching standard UNI poster proportions, with optical corrections deliberately excluded. Alessio D'Ellena's revival, produced with Alberto Malossi, makes this austere and formally peculiar design available for the first time as a ten-weight variable font.
Classification
A strict geometric sans-serif derived from a 7:10 ratio grid, with no optical corrections applied to the letterforms. Its origins in the Nebiolo foundry's late modernist programme place it firmly in the rationalist geometric tradition.