Olivetti was founded as a typewriter manufacturer by Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in Ivrea, Italy. It was famous for the attention it gave to design. Olivetti began with mechanical typewriters when the company was founded in 1909, and produced them until the mid-1990s. Until the mid-1960s, they were fully mechanical, and models such as the portable Olivetti Valentine were designed by Ettore Sottsass.