Alessi, an Italian company specializing in stainless steal production, founded in the 20‘s has gained great recognition for the design of their products. Their products are now in more permanent museum collections than any other product.

Alessi collaborates with designers outside of their company to create unique household products. They have been doing this since the 50’s and have had a lot of success by collaborating with influential designers.

The bird kettle came out of Alessi’s collaboration with architect/ designer Michael Graves. Graves was selected from a contest Alessi held for architects.

First introduced in 1985, this whistling bird kettle combine Italian high-end production with American design and is still Alessi’s number one seller.

The simplistic stainless steal kettle combines great design thinking and mass production methods. The handle and bird are now available in a few colour options, but the first design used the symbolic red and blue. Red - warning that the bird is hot and blue to represent that the handle was cool enough to touch.

HGTV’s Design DNA featured the kettle - watch how it’s built.

Links: Alessi / Design DNA