The Hidden Thread: a hand-printed book for Roberto Novello

Roberto Novello, an Italian brand of handcrafted 18kt gold eyewear and jewellery founded in 2000 in Sandrigo and known for bulinatura, hand engraving with a burin, asked for something exclusive. He gave the word an unusual meaning: “something no one else has”.¹

The answer was a book that exists in a few copies, printed and bound by hand, in which his biography is told as a fairy tale in five allegories of luxury: Thought, Faith, Matter, Heritage and Time. Its subtitle states the thesis: “A story about the essential luxury of time”.

The brief: what does “exclusive” mean to a goldsmith?

In luxury, exclusive usually means scarce or expensive. Scarcity does raise perceived value,² but a limited edition of an ordinary book would have answered only half of the brief. The other half was meaning: an object that would belong only to Novello and say who he is, readable with the eyes and with the hands.

Research: a dinner instead of an interview

The text did not come from a formal interview but from a conversation over dinner, and it keeps what a brand portrait usually removes: Novello’s ambiguities and weaknesses, alongside his strengths.¹ Research supports the choice. Credibility and integrity are among the traits people read as authentic,³ and a small amount of negative information, after positive information, can make the overall judgement more favourable.⁴ A portrait without any flaw reads as advertising.

Synesthetic Design: the association map

With Synesthetic Design, the design method Siderius works with, every stimulus is described by the sense through which it acts, by the associations it activates and by the value it serves. For The Hidden Thread the map links eight stimuli to the five values.

Why it works: reading with the hands

Touch. Simply touching an object increases the sense of owning it and the value attributed to it.⁶ The debossed cover and the raised, glossy gold foil, a surface people instinctively prefer,⁵ invite the reader to touch before reading, as a client handles an engraved frame.

The hand that made it. Products presented as handmade are perceived as carrying the maker’s care, and are preferred, especially as gifts.⁷ A book printed and bound by hand says, through its making, what its text says in words.

Story. People process brands partly as narratives, and a story that absorbs the reader strengthens the bond and lowers critical resistance.⁸⁹ The fairy tale is a form most readers have known since childhood.

A project without the machine

No artificial intelligence was used at any stage: not in research, writing, illustration or layout. The design rests entirely on epistemological and cultural associations, on what each material, gesture and image means to a person and to a community. In other projects we use AI where it speeds up work on large volumes of data. Here there was no volume to process: the value lay in interpretation and in time spent by hand.

Where the project stands

The first edition was printed in 2025 by Stamperia Inchiostro Puro in Grugliasco, near Turin, the only printing house among those contacted that agreed to take on the job.¹ The result is the object itself: we report no other outcomes, because none have been measured. The map remains a design hypothesis, and the next step is to test it: whether readers name the values after handling the book without being told, and whether it changes how clients perceive Novello’s pieces in the boutique.

Three rules we take into the next projects

Map before you make. Every stimulus gets a channel, an association and a value before production; a choice that serves no value is cut.

Let the object say what the text says. A book about time is made slowly; a book about gold is written in gold.

Keep the flaws. A portrait gains credibility from what it admits.

“A tale of bold dreams and patient hands that caress the threads of all that is invisible and eternal.” From the book.

Frequently asked questions

Project card. Client: Roberto Novello · Object: The Hidden Thread, hand-printed art book · A Siderius project with Onymous Studios · Art direction: Onymous Studios · Design, editing and illustrations: Ludovica Corponi · Photography: Youssef DaLima · Graphic design: Ilaria Miotto · Printing: Stamperia Inchiostro Puro, Grugliasco (TO) · Year: 2025

An object that says who you are. Tell us about your project: innovation@adsiderius.com

Siderius S.r.l. Società Benefit · Via Roma 50, 36070 Trissino (VI), Italy · adsiderius.com