love letter...

Love is a pretty strong word and not one I would often use for an object but I really do love the Olivetti Valentine typewriter. As of yet it is an unrequited love, I just admire it from a far and spend my spare time day-dreaming that some long lost relative will bequest me one in a will just because they know what an amazing home I would give it.

Like Mad Men the Valentine says something about the social shift that happened in the sixties, designed by Sottsass (with Perry A. King) at the end of this decade – the idea was to create an "anti-machine machine," for use anyplace but an office. As well as being light weight and very portable because of it’s plastic casing, it is vibrant and confident looking. The idea and the design effortlessly reflect the looser, fun loving and more casual approach to life and work that were forming at the time. For me this is always when design is at it’s best when it’s not only functional and beautiful but also completely embracing and help form the age it was created in.

I also have a second reason for loving the Valentine and that’s because my graphic design hero Alan Fletcher did the classic marketing campaign which comprised of the fabulous logo and poster (shown above) and also having hundreds of silk scarves printed with the brand and dropped from a plane alone the Riviera – promotion doesn’t get more glamorous than that.