Recta was born in 1959 from the pen of Aldo Novarese for the Nebiolo Fonderia of Turin and is considered one of the first contributions of the great Italian type designer to the massive wave of the European sans serif genre in full explosion in that half of the 20th century.

Initially published just a year after the release of the Swiss Neue Haas Grotesk and the French Univers, it rode the wave of enormous success of the "sans serif" genre, becoming the Italian Helvetica par excellence.

The softness of the line with an exquisitely "humanistic" touch in contrast with the clear forms typical of the grotesk genre are the distinctive characteristics of Recta, originally conceived in countless variations that were never created due to the unsustainable cost it would have entailed as a font for traditional printing.  ;