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KARIM RASHID:
WIZARD AT WORK
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shings to Product
Designs, The Designer’s Innovative Ideas
Are Changing The World Of Design
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Karim Rashid wants to change the
world, one design at a time. The 42-year-old, New
York-based designer challenges everyday design notions
by rethinking the most basic products in life.
“Why are beds a certain height off the floor?
Why do we live with 17th-century conventions?”
questions the award-winning designer, who was the
featured guest speaker at a special event held at
the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach,
Fla. From dishwashing liquid bottles to lighting fixtures,
Rashid develops designs that incorporate the latest
technology available. Often, he goes far afield to
adapt cutting-edge materials to his purpose, or he
develops an entirely new technology. To design the
first plastic perfume bottle for fashion designer
Issey Miyake, he ventured into the field of medicine
to find an inert material that wouldn’t affect
the fragrance.
A “pluralist” by self-definition, Rashid
designs computers, cosmetics, eyeglasses, clothing,
home furnishings and running shoes. His look, “sensual
minimalism,” as he calls it, is evident in the
soft curves, engaging forms and iconography in the
products he develops.
Rashid believes that softer forms communicate tactility,
express pleasure and heighten the experience of the
user. His newest chair, “Mario Lanza” for
Magis, Italy, demonstrates this point with its curvaceous
shape. “My parents were friends with Mario Lanza,
a popular singer in the 1950s. To me, this chair recalls
the look of that day,” Rashid says.
Born in Egypt and raised in Canada, Rashid earned
an industrial design degree in 1982 from Carleton
University in Ottawa. He then studied under famed
Memphis designer Ettore Sottsass in Naples, Italy,
and other renowned creators in Milan, Italy, before
returning to Canada. Eventually, he worked at several
top design firms in New York.
“Ten years ago I opened my own practice with
a computer at my bedside in my cramped New York apartment,”
he says with a laugh. “I was trying to survive.”
Today, Rashid has more than 700 designs on the market,
and his work has been honored with such major awards
as the Daimler Chrysler, George Nelson and Silver
IDEA. In 1998, he was named “Designer of the
Year” by The Brooklyn Museum of Art.
His work has been exhibited at the British Design
Museum in London; the Chicago Athenaeum; Cooper-Hewitt
National Design Museum and The Museum of Modern Art
in New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. More than 70 of
his creations are part of permanent collections.
Rashid’s client list includes such companies
as Directional, Issey Miyake, BDI, David Design, Carolina
Herrera, Estee Lauder, Tommy Hilfiger, Bozart and
Method, as well as ClassiCon, Germany and Autovox,
Italy, to name a few. His book, “I Want to Change
the World,” catalogs many of his groundbreaking
designs in fashion, interiors and more.
“When I first entered design, there was a perception
that it was elite,” he says. His mission, therefore,
is to bring great design to all levels of the marketplace.
“Design has always been thought of as permanent,”
Rashid observes. “Nothing is permanent. We should
experience a design, freely use it, let it go and
move on.”
According to Rashid, designers and consumers often
pay too much attention to the past. “I say, learn
all you can about history, then forget it. Live in
the moment.”
For more information on Rashid, visit his website
at www.karimrashid.com. |
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