“After taking the reigns of Olivetti, Adriano merged the Italian modernist principles that guided his manufacturing philosophy with humanistic concerns for the modern worker worldwide. Olivetti’s primary goal of harmonizing labor with life led him to found a “Community Movement” and most certainly influenced the design of products used by office workers as well. These products strive to communicate with the public through bold design aesthetics and would transform the seriously technical into the tactile and sensual.
(…)
It was Ettore Sottsass, however, that ultimately linked Olivetti and the typewriter in the minds of cult followers. The Valentine (1969), which attracted a new design-savvy generation of on-the-go typists, pushed the notion that productivity could be a happy (and even fun) affair. In fact, Sottsass considered the Valentine an “anti-machine machine.” Visionaries such as these, given adequate space to explore, transformed an otherwise mundane office with beautiful tools that invited the worker to be stimulated with color and form”.
Of course, you may prefer this one
(Thank you very much Kaufmann Mercantile)
Video tagged as: olivetti design italy innovation
