This gorgeous Olivetti Studio 45 is on ebay right now, but time is ticking and it's going for more than I can spend. So I'll post this picture here so that I can visit it on occasion.
update: Holy cow! It went for $250.05 plus shipping. I think this is a case of the quality photography pushing up the sell price.
I had the pleasure of meeting Edmonton-based artist and educator Natasha Lawyer this week. She has some very pretty collages available on her website. You can find out more about what catches Natasha's eye on her blog, Pretty Sketchy. Look at this pretty gift she brought... We obviously share a love of typewriters and the colour red. Thanks, Natasha!
A few weeks ago, while UPPERCASE was closed for Old School preparations, I had an extraordinarily fun day getting retro-glamorous and being photographed with my typewriter collection. Stephanie Roy of Botega Salon did my hair and makeup, and Kirstie Tweed took these marvelous photos. (We had some vintage typewriter ads as inspiration.)
I'm naturally shy, so it has taken some time to work up the courage to post these. But I am so happy with how the shoot turned out that I want to share Kirstie's and Stephanie's talents with all of you. I can't recommend Kirstie enough for weddings and portraiture. She is so warm-hearted, sweet and incredibly talented; you can trust her with your most important moments.
I've posted my favourites on Flickr.
"By the time he graduates, the first sentence he learns to type (The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.) will be a thing of the past. But not his Smith-Corona portable. Smith-Corona portables are all guaranteed for five full years—instead of the usual 90 days. Five years of all the bumps, bangs and scrapes a portable may get from a student. This portable is built to take it. The all-steel frame completely encases the heart of each machine for added protection The electrostatic finish defied scratches, burns and bruises. All Smith-Corona portables are made to last. A college education is just the start of a lifetime of service."
As you can see, the gallery is in disarray. But I moved all the boxes and furniture to the side for a very fun photoshoot with the amazingly talented Kirstie Tweed. Just a couple clues for now...
Topiary Art Designs in the United Kingdom is the company of topiary artist Steve Manning who makes custom and bespoke garden sculptures.
Just perusing ebay and found a few more toys for my virtual typewriter collection. I love how the red one is not only "petite" and "junior" it is also "super".
There's a nice metal toy typewriter up for grabs on ebay. It's located in Australia, so I won't be bidding on it!
Just kidding. But some definite design similarities with this beautiful Smith-Corona Skyriter weighing in at just 7lbs! (With the case, it is just 2.75" thick.) I believe this model is from the late-fifties. It's listed on ebay with just 4 hours to go, but already at $230+ dollars, this one shan't be mine. More on Smith-Coronas here and here.
(p.s. I love my Macbook Air!)
Happiness #1: the 1956 red Royal Quiet De Luxe Typewriter that I bought on ebay (for $66 plus shipping!) just before Valentine's Day has arrived! She's a beauty... just needing some cleaning, oiling, ribbon and general TLC.
Happiness #2: Camilla has sent me a pair of her Converse Red All Star sneakers! Camilla - a million thank yous for this and the creative inspiration you bring to us all.
They look so good together:
( a few more images posted to Flickr )
Jan at Poppytalk has began a new column on collecting and asked me to contribute. This was a great motivation to do something I've wanted to for a while... photograph my collection of vintage typewriter ribbon tins! You can read about the collection on Poppytalk today. To view the tins up close to admire all the typographic goodness, please visit my Flickr set.
Last night, the UPPERCASE Typewriter Club participated in Flywheel's monthly reading series at McNally Robinson. We had three typists putting random thoughts onto paper that were then read aloud (spelling mistakes, typing errors and all!) by audience members. See more pictures here.
Ettore Sottsass, the famed Italian designer, passed away on New Year's Eve. He designed the iconic Olivetti Valentine typewriter which was released on Valentine's Day, 1969.
“I worked 60 years of my life, and it seems the only thing I did is this fucking red machine,” he said (in a 2006 interview). “And it came out a mistake. It was supposed to be a very inexpensive portable, to sell in the market, like pens. It didn’t have capital letters, it didn’t have a bell [to let you know when you’d hit the end of a line]. I wanted the case to be inexpensive. Then the people at Olivetti said you cannot sell this kind of cheap Chinese thing. So, everything was put back: the capital letters, the bell, even the expensive plastic, which I was thinking would be this horrible, cheap plastic. So, it was a mistake.” – LA WEEKLY
Sottsass has also described the Valentine as "too obvious, a bit like a girl wearing a very short skirt and too much make-up." Nevertheless, the design of this machine – introduced near the end of the typewriter era – will forever be celebrated as one of Sottsass' great contributions.
Cover by Christy Batta
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