Olivetti Valentine: Difference between revisions

The Olivetti Valetine is a portable, manual typewriter manufactured and marketed by the Italian company, Olivetti, that combined the company's Lettera 32 internal typewriter mechanicals with (typically) red, glosssy plastic bodywork and matching plastic case. Introduced in 1969 and designed in 1968 by Olivetti's Austrian-born consultant, Ettore Sottsass in collaboration with Perry A. King^[1] and Albert Leclerc,^[2][3] it was the world's first plastic-bodied typewriter — using injection-molded ABS.^[4]

Despite being an expensive, functionally limited and somewhat technically mediocre product which failed to find success in the marketplace,^[2][5] the Valentine subverted the status quo of typewriter design, ultimately becoming a celebrated icon^[5] — largely on account of its expressive design.

The Valentine is featured in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, London's Design Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as the Triennale di Milano in Milan.^[6][5] Italy's Association of Industrial Design (ADI) awarded the Valentine its Compasso d'Oro in 1970.^[7]

Poet Giovanni Giudici, who was employed with Olivetti, called it "a Lettera 32 disguised as a sixties girl."^[8] Over time, Sottsass himself, who called the Valentine his oggetto rosso, his red object,^[3] would tire its design, calling it "too obvious, a bit like a girl wearing a very short skirt and too much make-up."^[9][2]

Ettore Sottsass originally conceived the Valentine^[4] as a response to the early 1960s flood of inexpensive pragmatically-designed manual typewriters from Japan^[10] — e.g., from Brother and Silver Seiko. His design would ultimately capture the zeitgeist of post-’68 counterculture and the age of mass production^[11] — presaging a wave of competing plastic-bodied ultra-portable typewriters.

Believing design should not merely be functional but also sensual and emotionally appealing,^[12] Sottsass suggested the use of the then-new material, ABS plastic, proposing to Olivetti a very basic but boldly-colored and highly affordable design, notably without a bell and using only upper case letters and exposed ribbon caps. At a time when most typewriter cases featured elaborate zippers and bulky suitcase-like designs, Sottsass proposed an inexpensive injection-molded, color-matched plastic sleeve case that could mate to the typewriter's plastic bodywork^[13] — which could also serve as a trash can or stool when the typewriter was in use.^[13] Sottsass lavished cost-minimizing or cost-free details throughout the design, going so far as to sketch studies of the negative space around each carriage end.^[10]

Olivetti largely objected,^[14] pushing for more features — and pushing to market a relatively expensive typewriter. Following this core conflict with Olivetti, and after having largely completed the design as well as its launch advertising campaign,^[4] Sottsass distanced himself from the project. His colleagues, British designer Perry King with Canadian Albert Leclerc, completed the design.^[13] It was formally introduced on Valentine's Day 1969^[11] — to a largely unreceptive market.^[5] Production took place initially in Italy, then later in Spain and Mexico.^[13]

The design itself was surprising and non-conformist, largely deconstructing what would typically be the typewriter's bodywork, using a body-colored plastic 'rail' floating ahead of the spacebar, visually detached from the typewriter's main body. Sottsass cited the orange nipples and pink breasts in Tom Wesselmann’s nudes as inspiration for the Valentine's orange ribbon caps, and chose the bright red color to emphasize casual creativity rather than the serious monotony of office work,^[14] anticipating the trend toward far less formal workplaces. The design was noted for the tight integration of the typewriter and its case, the rear 'plate' of the typewriter becoming the top of the case, transportable like a briefcase.^[4] Art historian Deborah Goldberg said "that as much attention went into the case as the typewriter [was radical].”^[11]

Details included black plastic keys and white lettering; orange plastic ribbon spool caps, silver metal return arm and paper guide; black rubber feet; red plastic swing handle at back of typewriter, raised "Valentine" lettering along the front and "olivetti" at the rear &mdash. the case featured softly rounded corners and a textured-finish, locking onto the typewriter itself via two black rubber straps/tabs on opposite ends of the case.^[5]

Over the course of production, design revisions included enlarging the orange ribbon caps, and adding two prominent dimples atop the bodywork, to help prevent scuffing when removing or slipping the typewriter into its case.^[13] Tab functionality was later added to Valentine S models, operated by a contrasting red key on the right side of the keyboard.

Though often called la rossa portatile (the red portable), the Valentine was also manufactured in very small numbers in white, blue and green, respectively for Italy, France and Germany.^[8]

Sottsass wanted the Valentine to have its own distinct image, that would "prevail over the global image of Olivetti."^[3] Together, they committed to creating the market for the Valentine, prioritizing the demographic that might appreciate the typewriter's design statement as much if not more than its mechanical specification,^[8] appealing to "young people or people with a youthful sensibility, open to the appeal of the new and fashionable."^[3]

The campaign graphics used a range of artists: Sottsass himself^[8] along with Roberto Pieraccini,^[15] Valter Ballmer, Yoshitaro Isaka, Graziella Marchi, Adrianus Van Der Elst — and Milton Glaser,^[4] who depicted the Valentine in a renaissance setting with a dog, suggesting that "it, too, was man’s best friend."^[2]

Launch advertising positioned the Valentine as a mass consumer product that anyone could use anywhere.^[8] Large posters were posted on city streets, in subways and railway; radio spots announced its arrival along with advertisements in popular magazines and short films for cinema.^[8]

At Olivetti's 1969 presentation of the Valentine, Sottsass announced "the laptop, today, becomes an object that one carries with him as one carries a jacket, shoes, hat — the things that we pay attention to and yet don't pay attention to, things that come and go, things that we tend to demystify more and more."^[8]

Brigitte Bardot and Elizabeth Taylor were noted Valentine users; in 1970 Richard Burton was photographed in a London airport carrying a Valentine;^[16] and the Valentine was used by the main character in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971).^[4] In 2016, David Bowie's Valentine typewriter sold at an auction at Sotheby's in London for £45,000 (US $57,000).^[17][18][19]

• Olivetti typewriters (all models)
• Olivetti S.p.A.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Olivetti Valentine.

• Olivetti website
• Collections in Motion: Valentine Typewriter (Brief film by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum)