Work by the studio has been exhibited internationally. Our Polite Society is based in Amsterdam and Stockholm. 1981) studied together at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, and in 2008 set up their design studio Our Polite Society, which designs books, magazines, posters, exhibitions, signage, record covers, and typefaces. A new text by Will Holder, written on the occasion of this exhibition, is published as an addendum to the book.īy reconstructing the visual history of FACIT and enriching it with reflections on the local communities and broader society it was rooted into, the publication and installation shed new light on overarching relationships between graphic design, typography, globalization, corporate culture, and identity.
![facit typewriter history facit typewriter history](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/AdkAAOSwacVatRbY/s-l400.jpg)
The publication looks back in time through the printed matter produced in FACIT’s inhouse print shops, such as type specimens, manuals, advertising leaflets, and product catalogues, and includes analyses, interviews, and a number of essays. Illustration by Haitham Haddad after Our Polite Society’s “The FACIT Model,” 2019.
Facit typewriter history archive#
The FACIT Model installation brings together original archive materials, digital reinterpretations of typewriter fonts used on FACIT machines, printed curtains, and reconstructions of FACIT office furniture. After decades of profound social and economic presence in Swedish society, FACIT underestimated the speed with which digitization, globalization, and competition would grow, and had to close its doors for good in 1998. The company sponsored the local football team Åtvidabergs FF, one of the most successful teams in Sweden at that time, and the first semi-professional team in the country.
![facit typewriter history facit typewriter history](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lzQTFu73RTU/TqzFZm6JCcI/AAAAAAAAGYg/2T_-wrB661w/s1600/berna5.jpg)
FACIT was based in the small town of Åtvidaberg, where it was a major employer. The company flourished between the 1950s and 1970s, an important time in design history as well as a period that shaped current ideas on office culture and its associated codes of conduct and ways of working. It explores, from a design perspective, the history of FACIT, which manufactured typewriters, calculating machines, and office furniture from the 1920s until the end of the 1990s. The FACIT Model (2019) is a publication and installation surrounding research into the printed matter of the Swedish company FACIT.