Alessi
In 1980, Michael Graves received an invitation from Alessi to participate in a promotional project known as the “Coffee and Tea Piazza.” Of all the sets, Michael Graves’ design sold best. Graves was then asked to design the now famous whistling bird teakettle that became a timeless design icon. This led to a decades-long design collaboration that produced more than 150 products.
Results
Human Focus
Michael Graves once received a postcard from a French poet, who wrote, "I'm always very grumpy when I get up in the morning. But when I get up now, I put the teakettle on, and when it starts to sing it makes me smile - damn you!"Transformation
As described in the Harvard Business Review, unlike a typical kettle that simply signals that water is boiling, Graves’ whistling bird kettle is designed to bring users joy. And while the wide base of the kettle makes the water boil faster, Graves’ design “showed its greatest originality in broadening people’s expectation of what a kettle was and did and, indeed, the nature of the breakfast experience.”ROI
Michael Graves’ whistling bird teakettle launched in 1985 and has been Alessi’s number one seller for the past 30 years, with over 1.5 million units sold.
