- Aug 11
10
Objectify Me: Tim Brown on the Olivetti Valentine
[Note: This is the first in a series of special guest posts, in which people we like discuss designed objects that inspire them. We'll be posting a new installment of "Objectify Me" every week.]
When I first saw this object as an industrial design student, it made me realize what great industrial design was all about. It’s the Valentine typewriter by the late Ettore Sottsass, designed back in the 1960s for Olivetti. Sottsass took a very mundane, ordinary object, and thought, “What could it be like if it’s not about business anymore, if it’s not about the typing pool, if it’s an object people might have in their homes?”
With this incredibly simple, elegant design, and this absolutely outrageous color, he took a product that’s still serious (it works very well as a typewriter) but he made it human in a completely surprising way. I think even today, even though we’re not using typewriters anymore, it’s still a great piece of product design.
I keep it in my office as a reminder that great design can be simple, it doesn’t always have to be a really complicated idea.
– Tim Brown
Tim Brown is the CEO and president of IDEO, an innovation and design firm with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. His designs have won numerous awards and been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Axis Gallery in Tokyo, and the Design Museum London.
August 11th, 2008 at 10:28 am
steven wade says:
i have been looking for a reasonably priced olivetti valentine for a few years now on ebay. somewhat unsuccessfully.
i fear that once this movie comes out it will be even harder for me to locate one.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
gary says:
steven, there are four on ebay right now, one is a “buy it now” for $200 USD. for a modern design icon, i think that qualifies as reasonably priced?
August 12th, 2008 at 10:49 am
rouss says:
Will you interview Philippe Starck?
August 12th, 2008 at 10:52 am
gary says:
maybe…
August 13th, 2008 at 12:12 am
steven wade says:
gary. yeah, thanks for the heads up. my last go around with these i was outbid at 450 dollars. so 200 is a good price… but i think i’m gonna wait for one in a little better condition.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:22 am
hellomuller says:
I managed to get a Valentine on eBay earlier in the year for around $140 USD… They’re out there sometimes at affordable prices.
August 17th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Guido Baratta says:
I still own a lime green “lettera 22″, it was my mother first typewriter and was designed by Marcello Nizzoli in 1949.
This typewriter used to be very popular in Italy and still has many fans. It was awarded the Compasso d’oro prize in 1954; in 1959, the Illinois Technology Institute chose the Lettera 22 as the best design product of the last 100 years.
The typewriter is sized about 27×37x8 cm (with the carriage return lever adding about 1-2 more centimeters in height), making it quite portable at least for the time’s standards, even though its 4 kg weight may limit portability somewhat.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Anne says:
Guido, would you happen to have a photo of the Lettera22? It’s unheard of on my end. Thanks.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Grant says:
Check out urbanoutfitters for Olivetti Manual Typwriter
September 5th, 2008 at 1:22 am
gary says:
Thanks Grant. It’s no Valentine, but I’m amazed they’re still selling typewriters, period.