The last typewriter made in America

Transparency: Literal and Figurative.

My Lettera 22 typewriter, still the most beautiful made, even 70 years later

For a guy who grew up around typewriters (my father ran an office supply store complete with a typewriter sales and repair shop) I have missed nearly EVERY opportunity to collect examples of these magnificent icons of design. While I still have my first typewriter (Olivetti Lettera 22, classic blue, with racing stripe matching case, designed by Marcello Nizzoli, 1949) I didn’t bother to grab a single typewriter when my father closed his shop.

Eliot Noyes designed IBM Selectric typewriter, 1961, the second (or third) most beautiful ever made

And when, in a retrospectively ‘anti-design’ moment, Pentagram Design trashed our two red IBM Selectrics (full Don Draper style, designed by Eliot Noyes) I stupidly didn’t bother to lug one home. And now I wonder what was wrong with me that I didn’t pick up a Sottsass-designed Valentine when their value bottomed out.