Your name defines you quite clearly, with the exception of that curious variable of doubled letters. How did you meet, how was the collective born, and why did you choose the name “Collletttivo”?

Collletttivo was born out of pure curiosity and a very practical need: to fill an educational gap perceived during our time at Politecnico. It all began in 2017 when we decided to deepen our understanding of typography and type design by attending the evening course Basic Type Design at CFP Bauer.

By the end of it, we realised we had already drawn several typefaces, definitely imperfect and raw, but nonetheless ours. We felt the need to share them, to spark growth and conversation. At the end of 2017 we launched the first version of our website, which was meant to be a showcase for these early experiments. The following year the group expanded and solidified with the arrival of new members who immediately shared the same spirit and, beyond publishing their own typefaces, became active members of the project, helping to shape what Collletttivo is today.

The open-source approach came naturally, not only because we were aware of the technical imperfection of our early fonts, but also because it aligned with an ethical and cultural vision that guided us from the beginning. We explicitly took inspiration from Velvetyne, the French reference point for open-source typography, especially since nothing similar existed in Italy back then.
We were looking for feedback and dialogue on our projects, and discovered that it was precisely the community that could give us that: people asking for additional language support and testing our fonts in all sorts of contexts. That broad exposure helped us grow and improve faster than we could have imagined. This open approach is encapsulated also in our name, deriving from the Italian word for collective “collettivo” while the extra “l” and “t” stands for the Italian term for open typography, “libera tipografia”. 

Of course, being open-source also came with its own contradiction: while it made our work visible and accessible, it also meant giving up a clear financial structure. From the very beginning, Collletttivo was built more on enthusiasm than on business plans.

Since the group is made up of several members and considering that Collletttivo is — at least for now — a “side” project compared to your main careers, what is your workflow like? Both in terms of typeface development and the overall management of the foundry?

One of the most challenging but rewarding aspects of Collletttivo is how we’ve managed to build, over time, an open and horizontal workflow. Too often design, especially type, is treated as a solitary, hyper-competitive practice. We tried to shape a model where collaboration isn’t just welcome, it’s essential. Over the years we’ve had long feedback sessions with external designers from very different backgrounds, proof that there’s a real need for models of open collaboration and exchange. Sometimes these conversations evolved into actual co-productions, leading to new typefaces published through our platform.

Our distributed, non-hierarchical structure helps us maintain a sustainable rhythm: everyone works in their own way and time, knowing there will always be a moment of collective review. There are no rigid deadlines or top-down directives, just a shared ethic guiding our revisions. It’s a system that relies on constant communication and can move slowly, but the individual growth it fosters is immense.

Sometimes running Collletttivo feels like managing a small country without a government. Making decisions as six people is both beautiful and painful. The horizontal setup allows freedom and dialogue but also demands patience, negotiation, and compromise: it’s highly democratic but not so efficient. Since we all juggle other jobs, teaching, freelancing, studio work, Collletttivo often lives in the in-between: late nights, weekends, one-hour calls full of half-finished thoughts. The rhythm is uneven but honest, shifting between bursts of collective energy and quiet pauses.

One of the most interesting aspects of your work is certainly your decision to operate as an open-source foundry. Why did you choose this path? At a time when many foundries are trying to protect their work and raise awareness about the value of licenses, your stance stands out quite a bit.

At the beginning, there was no urge to monetize our first fonts. They were exercises, their value was in the process itself. In fact, releasing them as open source allowed us to get feedback, improve, and gain visibility. Soon, though, we realised there was space for a more profitable side: clients and studios began asking for extended versions or custom projects. These commissions helped us fund the refinement of existing fonts and reinvest in the project, for instance, through printed publications that we’ve presented at various independent publishing fairs in Italy. 

A recurring theme in the type community is the issue of “unfair competition”: in a digital world flooded with both free and paid fonts of wildly varying quality, it’s hard for independent designers to make the real value of their work understood.

The presence of free font distributors can be frustrating, especially for those trying to make a living from this craft. We absolutely share the need to recognise and fairly compensate type designers’ work. But we don’t see open source as a threat to commercial foundries. Our free fonts are usually personal projects, not particularly extensive, never conceived with a commercial mindset nor developed with the same level of technical rigour required for retail fonts. We believe there’s room for everyone: we’d rather think in terms of abundance than scarcity, where each initiative contributes to enriching and expanding typographic culture and the industry as a whole.

Over time, we’ve also noticed that our fonts are often used by independent, non-profit or socially-driven organisations, and that alignment means a lot to us. Those practices share our cultural and design values, and often lack the resources to invest in retail fonts, so this feels like a meaningful contribution.

We’re now working on a line of typefaces designed for commercial licensing, a natural step after years of open experimentation. As Collletttivo approaches its tenth anniversary, we feel the need to grow into a hybrid model: one that keeps our open-source spirit alive while giving us the stability to keep creating.

We see Collletttivo as an evolving organism, adapting to our lives and the times around us. The goal isn’t to become a company, but something sustainable, a structure that can keep giving without exhausting the people who make it exist. Growth, for us, means expanding our scope without losing the honesty that started it all.

Those who know you are aware that Collletttivo doesn’t just deal with type design: you also carry out parallel activities like workshops, talks, and participation in events. What motivates you to engage in these areas as well? What role do they play in your journey?

The line between learning and teaching is thinner than it looks. It was our curiosity that sparked Collletttivo in the first place, and that same drive naturally pushed us to share what we were learning along the way. In Italy, typography still isn’t deeply explored in most academic contexts. At university, it’s often treated as a sub-topic of graphic design, without delving into its historical, technical, or cultural layers.

Our goal is to talk not only about how to draw a font, but what it means, the ethical and social implications of working with digital letters. That’s why we care about education, talks and public exchanges: we feel a sense of responsibility, both as designers and as an active part of a community, to foster a more conscious, in-depth approach to typography, one that values its complexity.

For this reason, whenever we work on publications or editorial projects, we try to go beyond the mere visual display of typefaces. We’re interested in offering context, telling the processes and intentions behind each project, presenting type not just as an image but as a meaningful form, each rooted in its story, references and deliberate choices. We believe that richer, more layered storytelling can contribute to a stronger, more accessible and engaging typographic culture for everyone.

Back to the foundry: some releases aren’t signed exclusively by you internal members. How does the more “traditional” part of the foundry work in these cases?

Running Collletttivo has always been a balance between ideals and reality.

The truth is, the concept of a “foundry” today is way less rigid than it used to be, and it’s been that way for us since day one. We’re not a company with departments, nor a mere distributor, nor a publisher in the traditional sense.

Our idea of a foundry grew as a natural extension of the group: an open platform where designing, producing and presenting type becomes an editorial, relational and even political act. Submissions come in spontaneously, and the process changes every time depending on the project. 

Every typeface is the result of a dialogue, sometimes between ourselves, other times with external designers, made of revisions, feedback, re-readings and endless email threads. Collaboration with external designers isn’t an exception, it’s a fundamental part of how we understand the foundry. Some relationships start informally through feedback exchanges, others through workshops, friendships or shared paths. Sometimes we host projects that originated elsewhere but found in Collletttivo the right space to be published and contextualised. In every case, the publication process is an open dialogue made of questioning stylistic, technical and linguistic choices together.

Practically speaking, every external project we host is followed through all its phases: technical review, proofing, specimen design, and publication on the website. We work closely with the designer so that their voice remains visible, yet resonates within Collletttivo’s ecosystem. We like to think of our foundry as a decentralized space, one where a font isn’t just a functional object, but a pretext to reflect on language, technology, visual culture and politics of access.

Publishing a typeface, for us, feels closer to releasing a book or curating an exhibition than to launching a product. It’s a curatorial, cultural, and yes, a slightly sentimental gesture.
We believe typography shouldn’t only work, it should mean something. And it should be made openly, together, as a collletttive practice.

How do you perceive the current state of design education in Italy?

When it comes to type design, we’ve seen some changes in the past few years.
At Politecnico and ISIA Urbino, for example, type design has finally become part of the curriculum, and there have been exciting experiments such as Type Design Expanded at Cfp Bauer, though they were isolated efforts that sadly didn’t last. In some cases, we’ve even taken a step back: for instance, the Basic Type Design course at Bauer, which for many of us was a formative moment, is no longer taught in person.

What’s still missing is a program that puts type design at the core of visual communication. When we organize workshops or talks, we see that the interest is definitely there. There’s a growing community of students and designers curious about type, eager to learn and share. Compared to when we started, the scene has grown a lot: there’s more awareness, more passion, and definitely a potential audience.

The reality is that to receive a complete education in type design, the only option is to go abroad. Institutions like ANRT (the Atelier National de Recherche Typographique) or Reading (the University of Reading) have built environments where academic research and type design coexist organically, something we’d love to see in Italy, a country with both the history and the professionals to make it possible.

In your opinion, what is the role of emerging graphic designers?

We don’t really think of “emerging designers” as a separate category. They’re simply the ones carrying the conversation forward. Their role is to stay alert, to resist the temptation to repeat formulas that no longer make sense.

Design today sits in a complex context. The world that we live in is becoming more divisive, extractive, and polarized. That’s why young designers shouldn’t aim to replicate old models of success (closed, hierarchical, market-driven), but to invent new ones, more open, collaborative, and cross-disciplinary.

Their task is to keep design uncomfortable, to remind us that visual communication is never neutral, and that every choice, whether aesthetic, typographic, or material, carries meaning and consequences. We see designers as cultural workers, not just service providers. People who can build systems of meaning, not only visual identities.

What advice would you offer to a young graphic designer entering the professional world today?

This is a tough one, because each of us started differently, with our own detours and timing. We’d probably say: do it for a reason. If you find a studio or a practice that brings you joy, you’re lucky, or at least one that can pay your rent. But keep nurturing the parts of design that make you happy, otherwise you’ll end up drifting away from it. We all know how demanding and consuming this field can be.

And yes, even if it sounds cliché: stay curious and skeptical. Learn the rules so you can break them with intention. Don’t rush to define your “style”, it will emerge naturally if you keep experimenting.

Find your peers, not your idols. Collaboration and community will take you much further than competition ever will. And finally, don’t underestimate the value of slowness. In a world obsessed with visibility and speed, taking time to think, to read, to fail and to grow is still the most radical thing you can do.