A red typewriter that you want to carry around instead of a briefcase

Pick up a typewriter and it can look more like an invitation to a picnic than a trip to handle paperwork. The Olivetti Valentine is a portable machine with black keys, orange details, and a bright red body. Before any paper is inserted, it departs from the familiar appearance of office equipment.

Designed by Ettore Sottsass and Perry King, it appeared in the late 1960s. Museum records give differing design and production dates for individual examples, but document the model's launch in 1969. It is a historical example of giving a technical product color and personality, rather than a new release.

Sottsass did not begin by seeking a high-end design collectible. The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains that he imagined an inexpensive portable machine stripped of lowercase letters and a bell, an idea the manufacturer resisted. That early proposal was not the final product: the finished machine did have lowercase letters.

Red was intended to distance it from the monotony of the office. The color was less a disguise for function than a way to change how people related to an everyday machine. A case with a handle made it portable, and its color maintained the same character in use, storage, and transit.

Commercial success and museum recognition are different measures. The Met notes that Valentine did not reach a broad public. Its goal of being a widely used office machine differs from its later status as a memorable design. A familiar silhouette can make it easy to assume that everyone once owned one.

Pressing a Valentine key still produces a letter on paper. What changes is the machine's place in daily life. Fit the case and lift the handle, and an object associated with a desk becomes something to take along for the day.