Ettore Sottsass in the context of "Typewriter"

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. Thereby, the machine produces a legible written document composed of ink and paper. By the end of the 19th century, a person who used such a device was also referred to as a typewriter.

The first commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874, but did not become common in offices in the United States until after the mid-1880s. The typewriter quickly became an indispensable tool for practically all writing other than personal handwritten correspondence. It was widely used by professional writers, in offices, in business correspondence in private homes, and by students preparing written assignments.

The Olivetti Valentine is a portable, manual typewriter manufactured and marketed by the Italian company, Olivetti, that combined the company's Lettera 32 internal typewriter mechanicals with signature red, glossy plastic bodywork and matching plastic case. Designed in 1968 by Olivetti's Austrian-born consultant, Ettore Sottsass (father of the Memphis Group), who was assisted by Perry A. King and Albert Leclerc, the typewriter was introduced in 1969 and was one of the earliest and most iconic plastic-bodied typewriters.

Despite being an expensive, functionally limited and somewhat technically mediocre product which failed to find success in the marketplace, the Valentine "subverted the status quo" of typewriter design, captured the zeitgeist of post-'68 counterculture, and ultimately became a celebrated international icon, largely on account of its expressive design.

The Memphis Group, also known as Memphis Milano, was an Italian design and architecture group founded by Ettore Sottsass. It was active from 1980 to 1987. The group designed postmodern furniture, lighting, fabrics, carpets, ceramics, glass and metal objects.

The Memphis Group's work often incorporated plastic laminate and terrazzo materials and was characterized by ephemeral design featuring colorful and abstract decoration as well as asymmetrical shapes, sometimes arbitrarily alluding to exotic or earlier styles and designs. Despite the original group's disbandment, Memphis Design went on to become a ubiquitous aesthetic in popular culture of the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, overtaking the earth tones of the 1970s and early 1980s. In the late 1990s, Memphis was succeeded by the Y2K aesthetic.