Thank you to Jan at Poppytalk for interviewing me for the Design*Sponge Guest Blog! Take a photographic tour of the UPPERCASE space and find out how I get my work done with so many lovely distractions.

Happiness #1: the 1956 red Royal Quiet De Luxe Typewriter that I bought on ebay (for $66 plus shipping!) just before Valentine's Day has arrived! She's a beauty... just needing some cleaning, oiling, ribbon and general TLC.

Happiness #2: Camilla has sent me a pair of her Converse Red All Star sneakers! Camilla - a million thank yous for this and the creative inspiration you bring to us all.

They look so good together:

( a few more images posted to Flickr  )

The Nonist always has some interesting topics. Here are some graphics from Graphis annuals past.

Jan at Poppytalk has began a new column on collecting and asked me to contribute. This was a great motivation to do something I've wanted to for a while... photograph my collection of vintage typewriter ribbon tins! You can read about the collection on Poppytalk today. To view the tins up close to admire all the typographic goodness, please visit my Flickr set.

 

Last night, the UPPERCASE Typewriter Club participated in Flywheel's monthly reading series at McNally Robinson. We had three typists putting random thoughts onto paper that were then read aloud (spelling mistakes, typing errors and all!) by audience members. See more pictures here.

Ettore Sottsass, the famed Italian designer, passed away on New Year's Eve. He designed the iconic Olivetti Valentine typewriter which was released on Valentine's Day, 1969.

“I worked 60 years of my life, and it seems the only thing I did is this fucking red machine,” he said (in a 2006 interview). “And it came out a mistake. It was supposed to be a very inexpensive portable, to sell in the market, like pens. It didn’t have capital letters, it didn’t have a bell [to let you know when you’d hit the end of a line]. I wanted the case to be inexpensive. Then the people at Olivetti said you cannot sell this kind of cheap Chinese thing. So, everything was put back: the capital letters, the bell, even the expensive plastic, which I was thinking would be this horrible, cheap plastic. So, it was a mistake.” – LA WEEKLY

Sottsass has also described the Valentine as "too obvious, a bit like a girl wearing a very short skirt and too much make-up." Nevertheless, the design of this machine – introduced near the end of the typewriter era – will forever be celebrated as one of Sottsass' great contributions.

 

The all business "present with a future" (ad for the Olivetti Underwood Lettera 32) or the warm-fuzzy typewriter that brings the whole family together.

 

Our little typewriter club is getting together Saturday at 2pm in the Palette Coffeeshop (same floor as UPPERCASE). Everyone is welcome. If you have a machine to show off or donate to the group, please do stop by.

The images above are from an amazing collection of typewriters being auctioned off here. 

I sold my Olympia yesterday to a lovely girl from the UK who is lugging it home as carry-on luggage! I know it has found a loving and attentive new owner. I enjoyed cleaning up this machine and giving it a new life. Next project: a green Royal Quiet Writer Deluxe!

 

type-written
type-smitten
type-mitten 

(from the inaugural UPPERCASE typewriter 
club, October 13, 2007) Next meeting date 
to be announced soon.