The Memphis design studio in Milan was started in 1979. As with many European design studios and movements, the Memphis design group appeared to have a greater tolerance for abstract design than did American groups of the time, but in fact the European groups generally looked to American style of the 1950s for inspiration. Ettore Sottsass was the leading figure of the Memphis design group, and much of what he embodied in that group derived from his earlier experiences as a designer. The ideas he implemented in the design group were ambitious and adventurous. The designs produced were highly successful, but for Sottsass this success was itself only a beginning. While the public clamored for more, he was already looking to the next mode of expression. The Memphis design group had a considerable influence on the industrial design that would follow, an influence still felt today.
The importance of such an influence is emphasized by Jan Burney when she notes the prevalence of design in the world today. In this century more than ever before, the objects of life are designed:
As we look back over the 20th century, it is clear that one activity above all others has come to dominate the shape of the machine-made world. Reality in the late 20th century is designed, not shaped by use or custom. In this sense it is already correct to call the 20th century the century of design. . .
This prevalence of design in the machine age is seen by Burney as the only human activity connecting human beings to the productive capabilities of the robot that has taken over so much formerly human work. She finds indeed that where once the machine was feared, it is now embraced, and that design was key in both responses. She describes design as the engine of consumption:
The symbiotic phenomenon of design and economic life now exists at a level far beyond the wildest dreams of the industrialists of sixty years ago. Design now sustains e...