OLIVETTI: DESIGN IN INDUSTRY
Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, Vol XX, No. 1, Fall 1952
Leo Lionni [Designer]
Museum of Modern Art, Department of Architecture and Design: OLIVETTI: DESIGN IN INDUSTRY. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1952. First edition [The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, Vol. XX, No. 1, Fall 1952 Special Issue]. Stapled printed wrappers. 24 pp. 30 black and white illustrations. Designed by Leo Lionni. Wrappers lightly handled with spine splitting and a vintage tape repair to spine crown, but a very good copy.
7.5 x 10 stapled softcover bulletin with 24 pages and 30 black and white photographs and illustrations tracing the development of the design culture at Olivetti. Includes industrial design, packaging, signage, posters and architecture by Giovanni Pintori, Leo Lionni, Marcello Nizzoli, Figini and Pollini and Ugo Sissa. Published on the occasion of an exhibition of the work of the Olivetti Group held at the Museum of Modern Art from October 22 1952 through November 30, 1952.
An early work devoted to Olivetti's legendary commitment to quality in Design.
Adriano Olivetti (Italian, 1901 –1960) was an Italian engineer, politician and industrialist whose entrepreneurial activity thrived on the idea that profit should be reinvested for the benefits of the whole society. He was son of the founder of Olivetti, Camillo Olivetti, and Adriano was known worldwide during his lifetime as the Italian manufacturer of Olivetti typewriters, calculators, and computers.
Olivetti was an entrepreneur and innovator who transformed shop-like operations into a modern factory. In and out of the factory, he both practiced and preached the utopian system of "the community movement", but he was not an astute enough politician to have a mass following.
The Olivetti empire had been begun by his father Camillo. Initially, the "factory" (consisting of 30 workers) concentrated on electric measurement devices. By 1908, 25 years after Remington in the United States, Olivetti started to produce typewriters.
Adriano's father Camillo, who was Jewish, believed that his children could get a better education at home. Adriano's formative years were spent under the tutelage of his mother, daughter of the local Waldensian pastor, an educated and sober woman. Also, as a socialist, Camillo emphasized the non-differentiation between manual and intellectual work. His children, during their time away from study, worked with and under the same conditions as his workers. The discipline and sobriety Camillo imposed on his family induced rebellion in Adriano's adolescence manifested by a dislike of "his father's" workplace and by his studying at a polytechnic school of subjects other than the mechanical engineering his father wanted.
Nevertheless, after graduation in chemical engineering at the Polytechnic University of Turin in 1924 he joined the company for a short while. When he became undesirable to Mussolini's Fascist regime, his father sent him to the United States to learn the roots of American industrial power. For the same reasons he later went to England. Upon his return he married Paola Levi, a daughter of Giuseppe Levi and a sister of his good friend Natalia Ginzburg.
His visit to various plants in the United States, and especially Remington, convinced Adriano that productivity is a function of the organizational system. With the approval of father Camillo, he organized the production system at Olivetti on a quasi-Taylorian model and transformed the shop into a factory with departments and divisions. Possibly as a result of this reorganization, output per man-hour doubled within five years. Olivetti for the first time sold half of the typewriters used in Italy in 1933. Adriano Olivetti shared with his workers the productivity gains by increasing salaries, fringe benefits, and services.
In 1931 he visited the USSR and created an Advertising Department at Olivetti which worked with artists and designers. The creation of an Organization Office followed one year later, when he became general manager, and the project for the first portable typewriter started.
His success in business did not diminish his idealism. In the 1930s he developed an interest in architecture, as well as urban and community planning. He supervised a housing plan for the workers at Ivrea (a small city near Turin, where the Olivetti plant is still located) and a zoning proposal for the adjacent Aosta Valley. Under Fascism, patronizing workers at work and at home was in line with the corporative design of the regime. While Adriano showed distaste for the regime, he joined the Fascist Party and became a Catholic. Yet during World War II he participated in the underground antifascist movement, was jailed, and at the end sought refuge in Switzerland. There he was in close contact with the intellectual emigrees and he was able to develop further his socio-philosophy of the Community Movement. He also had contacts with representatives of the British Special Operations Executive. With these he tried to avoid Allied invasion of Italy and to obtain a negotiated Italian retreat from the war assuming a mediation of the Holy See and making strong the support that he enjoyed with influential Italian political circles.
During the immediate post-war years the Olivetti empire expanded rapidly, only to be briefly on the verge of bankruptcy after the acquisition of Underwood in the late 1950s. During this period, first calculators and then computers replaced the typewriter as a prime production focus. Adriano shared his time between business pursuits and attempts to practice and spread the utopian ideal of community life. His belief was that people who respect each other and their environment can avoid war and poverty. His utopian idea was similar to that preached by Charles Fourier and Robert Owen during the previous century.
In his enterprises, Adriano Olivetti's attempts at utopia may be translated in practice as actions of an enlightened boss or a form of corporatism. He decreased the hours of work and increased salaries and fringe benefits. By 1957 Olivetti workers were the best paid of all in the metallurgical industry and Olivetti workers showed the highest productivity. His corporatism also succeeded in having his workers accept a company union not tied to the powerful national metallurgical trade unions.
During the 1950s, in a limited way, the community movement succeeded politically in Ivrea. (Adriano was even elected mayor of Ivrea in 1956.) But the utopia at the factory and in Italy at large began withering away even before Adriano's death in 1960.
Adriano Olivetti's era saw great changes in Italian business and in industrial relations. New organizational methods were sought and humanistic idealism spread during the cruel time of World War II as well as during the difficult post-war years. The utopia of Olivetti could not have easily survived, but it helped induce the rapid reconversion of Italy's industry from war to peace-time production.
From the Leo Lionni AIGA Medal Profile: “The name Lionni conjures many mental references: “The Family of Man,” Swimmy the fish, Century Schoolbook Expanded, exotic flora, Olivetti and more, because the man behind the name has affected our visual “landscape” for almost three generations. He has been a committed teacher, author, critic, editor, painter, sculptor, printmaker, designer, cartoonist and illustrator.
“Leo Lionni was born in Holland in 1910, into a world on the cusp of radical change—with cultural and political revolutions in the air and on the streets. His father was an artisan, a diamond cutter from a well-to-do Sephardic Jewish family, and his mother was a singer. Her brother, Piet, an architect, allowed his adoring, five-year-old nephew to play with his drafting supplies. And two other uncles, both collectors of modern art (whose extensive collections are now held by major museums), fed his artistic inclinations by osmosis. One uncle refused to pay taxes in Holland, and hence was only able to live in the country six months minus one day. Part of his collection was stored a Lionni's house, including Marc Chagall's “Fiddler” which hung outside his bedroom.
“At that time, Amsterdam's government was influenced by a Socialist party whose ideas underpinned a progressive educational system. “There was great emphasis on nature, art and crafts,” recalls Lionni. “In an early grade I was taught to draw from a big plaster cast of an ivy leaf; I remember rendering all of the shading with cross-hatched lines. There was something magical about it. I can still draw that leaf today, and probably not better than I did then.
“He was given a permit to draw at the Rijksmuseum where he drew from casts. ”Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Mondrian, design, architecture, even music,“ explains Lionni, ”were one big mood to me. Except for brief periods of artisan enthusiasm, I have denied cultural hierarchies. Ancient art is as important to me as contemporary art. Art is as important as design.“
“Lionni moved to Philadelphia at 14, and in 1925 was transplanted again to Genoa, Italy. Unable to get in to a ”classical“ high school, he was enrolled in a ”commercial“ one (no Greek was taught in the latter). He learned Italian and became conversant in its art, literature and poetry. But most significantly, at the age of 16, Lionni discovered Italian politics through his friendship with Nora Maffi, who later became his wife and lifelong companion. Nora's father was one of the founders of the Italian Communist party, and was imprisoned in 1925 by the Fascists. Later he was placed under house arrest with six live-in Fascist policemen. ”This was quite a shock, having come from a happy Philadelphia school, where I played basketball and went to proms. It fell on my head like a bomb, and conditioned my life enormously.“
“Lionni was conscious of wanting to become a graphic designer. He created signs for ships and produced his own comp advertisements for Campari, which were presented to Mr. Campari himself. But, most important, he came under the influence of Futurism, which as a movement of painting and graphic design was at its height.
“By 1921, at the age of 21, Lionni was on the crest of the second Futurist wave. ”I was living the life of the avant-garde: We had blue plastic furniture and Breuer chairs.“ He was painting turbulent abstract pictures typical of the era, but his work had a flair of its own—so much so that it caught the eye of F. T. Marinetti, codifier of the Movement, who pronounced the young Lionni to be 'A great Futurist.'
“Thanks to Marinetti's support, Lionni's paintings were exhibited in shows throughout Italy. On the eve of one such exhibition, Marinetti received a portentous telegram announcing that the Bauhaus had been closed by the Nazis. ”We sat up the entire night,“ recalls Lionni, ”and decided to send a telegram back inviting all the Bauhaus artists to Italy, and offered our homes for them to stay in indefinitely.“ Not only was Lionni indignant and fearful about Nazi repression, but the Bauhaus teachings were deeply seeded—its rational philosophy his true underpinning. ”I never really felt comfortable as a Futurist, even though Marinetti proclaimed me to be 'the heir of aero-dynamic painting.' I actually resented it; I had never even been in an airplane before. I am really Dutch. I felt closer to DeStijl, and I responded to the patterns and symmetry of the tulip fields. In fact, I rarely ever put type or image on angles unless there was a good reason to do it. My ultimate design influence is the Bauhaus, although I've never been directly connected with them.“
“With the birth of the first of two sons, Lionni decided to move the family to Milan, the hotbed of the Italian avant-garde. ”We were the first tenants to live in the first rationally designed apartment building in Milan. There I made a living doing graphic design, architectural photography and some advertising with a friend who was a German refugee.“
“Later in Milan, the earliest marriage of easel and applied art can be traced to ads Lionni did for a wool company, and ad pages done for Domus magazine. He also began writing architectural criticism for the renowned magazine, Casabella. He worked closely with Eduardo Persico, a hero in anti-Fascist circles, who had a marked influence on Lionni's writing and design. ”Persico not only edited the magazine, he 'designed' it as well. It never looked more beautiful,“ remembers Lionni. ”I watched him do layouts that, I would say, reflected rationalism—and rationalism has been the greatest influence on my life.“
“Lionni soon devoted himself to advertising design, ”simply for the joy of putting good imagery onto pages,“ he says. He also attended the University of Genoa, from which he received a Doctorate degree in Economics in 1935. ”I wrote my dissertation on the diamond industry, of course,“ he says. ”I finished something for which I had no real use, but my obsessive necessity to finish what I begin caused me to do it.“
“When a darker specter of Fascism began to shroud Italy, Lionni, ordered by official decree to declare whether or not he was Aryan, opted instead to emigrate to the United States. He went to Philadelphia to N. W. Ayer, the advertising agency which handled the account for Atlantic Refining Company (the company for whom his father was working). A fortuitous meeting with Charles Coiner, vice president and art director, was the beginning of a career and a friendship. Coiner arranged for Leo to do some ads for Ladies Home Journal. Later he had Lionni teaching a layout course at the Charles Morris Prince School. ”At the time I knew nothing about typography,“ he admits, ”because in Italy all we had to do was indicate a block of text and the printer would fit in whatever was on hand.“
“The classic break came in the early Forties when N. W. Ayer was in the throes of crisis with its multimillion dollar Ford Motors account. Ford was not happy with the new ad proposals. All members in the creative pool were asked to offer solutions, so Lionni created a series of ads which were to be scrutinized by Edsel Ford. Word later came back that Lionni had the job. In one week, he went from a $50 a week assistant to a $500 a week art director on one of the largest accounts in the United States. Offers from prestigious New York agencies followed, but he stayed in Philadelphia until 1947. ”It was the ideal place to be. Where we lived, I could go out at five o'clock in the morning to fish for trout before going to work.“ Challenging accounts came his way. Comptometer was one, for which he commissioned drawings by Saul Steinberg. He hired a neophyte Andy Warhol to do sketches for Regal Shoes. And for Chrysler Plymouth, he developed a unique, teaser billboard presentation, which is still a model of creative marketing.
“Among Lionni's most exciting endeavors was being the art director for the Container Corporation's ”International Series.“ He returned to his Modernist roots, commissioning Morre, Calder, DeKooning and others to do posters and ads. For one such project, Léger, who was then living in New York, was asked to do a painting, which he did in color. When Lionni showed it to Walter Paepcke, he was asked if Léger would also do it in black and white as a newspaper ad. Lionni drew up a copy in line which he showed to Léger. Seeing the ”rough,“ the painter said 'That's as good as I would do it,' and signed the Lionni sketch, which was later printed.
“Lionni continued painting, and he took a year off to study and work on mosaics. But ”in 1948 I started to get restless,“ he remembers. There was a subtle difference between being an advertising designer and a graphic designer, and Lionni wanted to become ”a general practitioner of the arts.“ He left the agency, moved to New York, and opened a small office. ”I called the promotion art director at Fortune, whom I had dealt with in the past, to ask for work. Instead, he told me that Fortune was looking for an art director and asked if I was interested.“ While it was an alluring offer, Lionni wasn't looking for a job. ”I told them I would do it on a freelance basis, three days a week, and that I wanted an assistant who would go to all the meetings.“ Fortune readily agreed, and after a brief trout fishing vacation, Lionni began his 14-year relationship with Time/Life.
“Lionni's feelings for magazine design are profound. Though he had never designed a magazine before, ”it fit me like an old shoe, because it brought everything that I had learned with passion to some kind of concrete manifestation. I employed my rationality in designing its architecture. As with all the arts I'd been involved with, I defined exactly what Fortune's limitations were—what it was and wasn't. That to me is a real Bauhaus approach.“ Lionni redesigned Fortune two times. In each case, he eschewed cold functionality for a more human approach. He introduced Century Schoolbook, his favorite type. ”I don't know much about type but Century Schoolbook is a human face.“
“From its inception, Fortune was known for its intelligent use of art, both fine and applied. During Lionni's tenure, painters were encouraged to do illustrations and picture essays, and illustrators were commissioned as graphic journalists—not as renderers of proscribed imagery, but free to draw upon and interpret firsthand experiences. Lionni urged artists ”to do things which they were not accustomed to doing.“ Hence, many young talented practitioners, and quite a few masters of the pen and brush received globe-trotting assignments. Today many artists credit the nurturing Lionni as a seminal influence.
“Lionni consulted with Henry Luce on many Time/Life projects, including a prototype design for Sports Illustrated. He also maintained outside clients, including The Museum of Modern Art, for whom he did The Family of Man catalogue design, and as design director for Olivetti, he did ads, brochures and environmental (showroom) design. Also in the realm of the third dimension, Lionni deigned the American Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair. Sponsored by Fortune and titled ”Unfinished Business,“ it was a long tunnel in which were shown images representing the unresolved problems of American society. Ironically, it was abruptly closed after a visiting Congressman objected to its controversial negative focus.
“Perhaps the most satisfying accomplishment of Lionni's career was his short tenure as co-editor and art director of Print. During the mid-Fifties, he elevated graphic design commentary and criticism, offering a platform for varying disciplines and points-of-view. He opened up the design community—then as now polarized between the classicists and the modernists—to possibility and invention, through in-depth coverage of international trends and national currents. Print was an example of Lionni's rationalism in the service of his colleagues and his art. ”I've looked back on those issues,“ he says proudly, ”and they are very civilized.“
“The notion of creating ”civilized and human“ art became Lionni's obsession. After all his tangible accomplishments, ”I felt the only way I could really reach my goal was by doing painting, sculpture, writing and graphics the way I wanted to do it.“ His professional career, except for the few found moments to study mosaics, had been in the service of others. ”Everything I had done was a happy compromise that I've never felt ashamed of in the least.“
“But the time had come for movement. At 50 years old, at the peak of his endeavors, Lionni left Time/Life. He moved to Italy where he owned a house and life was less expensive. ”Everyone thought I was crazy because I had very little money, but it was what I needed to do.“
“Lionni's fate, however, was not sealed by a seemingly irrational act, for just before he was ready to leave on his new adventure, a remarkable accident took place while he was riding on a commuter train with his grandchildren. To entertain them, he tore little bits of colored papers from Life magazine and made a magical story. Lionni returned home, he placed what he'd done into a book dummy. Fabio Coen, who had just become children's book editor of Obolensky Inc., published it as ”Little Blue and Little Yellow,“ and Lionni became a picture book author. Now with 30 books to his credit, and a 75th birthday anthology that will be published this year, he is a household name among parents and children. For Lionni, the children's book is an organic synthesis of all his talents, beliefs and obsessions, wedding as it does his artistic sense of humor, color and abstraction with the desire to teach. Bruno Bettelheim states in an introduction to the recent anthology that Lionni ”is an artist who has retained his ability to think primarily in images, and who can create true picture books.“ And he continues: ”It is the true genius of the artist which permits him to create picture images that convey much deeper meaning than what is overtly depicted.“
“Despite his resolution to devote himself to painting and sculpture, Lionni agreed when Time/Life contacted him in Italy to become editor/art director of Panorama, a monthly general interest magazine, a collaboration between Time/Life in New York and Mondadori in Milan. He enjoyed being in charge, and hence published some extraordinary work. Yet the position was fraught with ”political“ problems from the outset. ”Mondadori couldn't understand why Time/Life installed a impaginatore (layout man) as the editor of an important magazine,“ Lionni ruefully recalls, ”and after a year and a half I was replaced, the American collaboration ceased, and the magazine was turned into a weekly, now one of the highest circulation journals in Italy.“
“From that time on, Lionni has taken advantage of his freedom. Living in Italy six months of the year, he continues to expand the boundaries of the children's book, while exploring the natural world through his drawings and sculpture. In recent years, he has cast in bronze a garden of strange flora, which was derived from his imagination. In 1977, he published ”parallel Botany,“ a satiric documentary account of his bizarre botanical discoveries.
“Lionni has left an impressive mark. As an art director at N.W. Ayer, he wedded fine art to applied art. As co-editor of Print, he elevated the level of graphic design criticism. As art director of Fortune, he launched the careers of many formidable practitioners. As a children's book author and artist, he has engaged the minds and hearts of several generations. His own graphic endeavors are enlivened by youthful innocence, sage-like logic and humor. His astute essays on the teaching and practice of graphic design are invaluable additions to the lexicon of the field. Moreover, in word and deed, he has been an unfaltering rationalist, a devout humanist and a passionate artist.” Copyright 1994 AIGA