Olivetti priced a designer typewriter for luxury and the market refused it

Olivetti introduced the Valentine portable typewriter on Valentine's Day 1969, designed by Ettore Sottsass with Perry King in a bright red plastic body with a matching case. The Victoria and Albert Museum states the outcome plainly: 'It was not a commercial success. The Valentine was technically mediocre, expensive and failed to sell to a mass audience, yet still became a design classic.'

Olivetti had expected a blockbuster. It projected sales in the millions, but the Valentine managed only tens of thousands, and was initially retired before returning to production by popular demand. In the United States it retailed for $259, while a comparable metal-bodied ultra-portable sold for $49. The price reflected Olivetti's insistence on costlier impact-resistant plastic and more features on a machine that was, mechanically, ordinary.

The afterlife is the irony the trade retells: the typewriter buyers rejected became a museum icon, held by MoMA, the Design Museum and the V&A, and called the product Olivetti turned 'from office equipment into a cult object.' Design praise and commercial success were decided by different juries, and Olivetti had optimised for the wrong one.