Where Design Shapes Culture – Karim Rashid

“My inspiration is to beautify the world. I always found myself having more ideas than companies could ever produce.”

Visualising an entirely different world where design shapes culture, is something Karim Rashid is good at and passionate about. Borned in Egypt and raised in Canada, Karim is one of the most recognised industrial designers in America and around the world.

His accolades speak for themselves – with over 4000 designs produced, 300 awards and design works in 40 countries, making him one of the most prolific designers of his generation.

Based in New York City, with a second office in Shenzhen, China, Karim creates and delivers design works to the world that both solve problems and beautify spaces. A handful of his works are featured in 20 permanent collections and he exhibits art in galleries worldwide. Some award-winning design examples include:

• Luxury goods – Christofle, Veuve Clicquot, and Alessi
• Furniture & lighting – Bonaldo, Vondom and Artemide
• Technology products – Asus and Samsung
• Brand identity – Citibank and Sony Ericsson
• Packaging – Paris Baguette, Kenzo and Hugo Boss

Bringing together a world full of contemporary inspiring objects, spaces, places, worlds, spirits and experiences, is an artistic endeavour that only Karim knows best.

EARLY LIFE

Tell us more about your family background and share with us on what it was like growing up.

I was born in 1960 in Cairo, and after a year, we moved for a short time to Rome. My father was working with an Egyptian television as a designer. Then we moved to Paris for a short time. My father had an exhibition and then he decided to move on. My mother’s British and she wanted to go to England to be near her family after five years abroad. So, then we moved to London, and I was young, about two and a half. My first formative years were in London.

I was very young, about six when we moved to Canada, which was very different from England despite their linguistic similarities. I remember my first experiences from then on. We have differences in how much we remember our childhoods. I remember very little of mine. It’s strange. My first really strong memory was on the ship going from London to Montreal. We were on the Queen Elizabeth and there was a drawing competition.

How did your upbringing shape the person you are today?

My father encouraged me to explore the arts and be a pluralist! He was a creative renaissance man – I saw him create furniture, make dresses for my mother, paint canvases, design sets for television and film, etc. We were brought up in an extremely inspiring context that gave me great respect for all of the arts including costume design.

There were pens, markers, colored pencils and paper everywhere, so drawing and creating were a natural process for both of us. He took us to his office where he designed film and television sets. We would spend the weekend making models, drawing, playing in the costume department and on the TV sets.

JOURNEY

How and why did you get into the design of physical spaces and objects as a profession?

I realized my life’s mission at the age of 5 in London. I went sketching with my father drawing churches on Sundays. He taught me to see – he taught me perspective at that age – he taught me that I could design anything and touch all aspects of our physical landscape. I remember drawing a cathedral facade and deciding I did not like the shape of the gothic windows (the pointed tops seemed dangerous) so I redesigned them. I drew them as ovals.

I also remember winning a drawing competition for children on the ‘Queen Elizabeth’, when we sailed from London to Montreal in 1966 – I drew a luggage since I was really perplexed at how we packed up our entire belongings into some suitcases to go to the new world.

What were some hard decisions you had to make and challenges faced along the way?

My career really started in 1992 (I was 32) when I moved to New York City. I was penniless but started drawing objects, romanticizing about the beautiful world I always wanted to shape. I found a rundown loft without a kitchen or bathroom and struggled to survive.

After approaching about 100 companies from ‘Lazy Boy’ to Gillette, I only managed to clinch one client. At the same time, I started teaching at Pratt Institute and worked alone for a few years before hiring some staff. I was determined to create a successful practice. That was 29 years ago!

Share with us some stories/experiences that you think are significant to your journey.

After college, I went for a one-year graduate program in ‘Industrial Design’ in Italy, studying with Gaetano Pesce and Ettore Sottsass. Sottsass taught me that there are many beautiful design objects, but that you have to ask yourself – “what do they do for us?”

In the sense of human, inspiring objects, Memphis was a revelation. There are many imposing design objects who need to stand by themselves to impress. I always ask myself, what is left, if you take the design away? If it’s style, it is a thing of the past.

Later on, I was a full-time professor in Toronto at OCAD, and then moved to teach at the Rhode Island school of Design (RISD). I was going to quit the design profession in 1992 when I was fired from RISD. I was told I was teaching ‘philosophy and theory’, not design. I loved academia but I’m grateful to have been let go because it prompted me to start my own firm.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Which achievements/milestones are you most proud of and why?

My most challenging project was probably my design for Naples Metro. It is my longest project to date! I started in 2004 and it wasn’t completed until 2011. But I am very proud of the finished product.

They selected various famous architects to design each station. The stations in Naples are referred to as ‘Art Stations’. Gae Aulenti’s art station had work by artists Michelangelo Pistoletto and Joseph Kosuth. Some stations had art from artists Sol Lewitt to Sandro Chia. The late Italian design maestro, Alessandro Mendini, liked my sensibility, which was really flattering considering that I aspired to his vision when I was in university and always saw him as a mentor.

So since the art stations were under the auspices of art, this afforded me to rather than design an art station that is somewhat conservative and ‘accent’ it with art, I just did the whole station as my digital art. So I sunk the art budget into the interior walls and spaces instead of selecting art. I will always love the impact and challenge that was the Naples Metro. It is the epitome of democratic design.

But if I must choose products then I am proud of the Garbo can for Umbra that I designed in 1994 since it is 20 years old and is still so successful.

What do you think are the key ingredients to your success?

Digital tools inspire me to make forms as sensual, as human, as evocative, as sculptural as possible, but through new shapes that were historically impossible to make without new technologies. The humanized and organic language of ‘Sensual Minimalism’ is very appealing to our natural sensibilities.

Also, I usually work with the strengths of the client based on the different materials – such as glass, fiberglass, 3D printing, wood, rotomolding or injection molding. Because these are the cultures of the company – and design is about this collaboration. A designer must understand completely the culture and history of a company, their vision and their market.

What lies ahead in terms of your goals and ambitions?

– Open an art gallery and coffee shop.

– Design more private homes, a hospital, museum, mosque, and small appliances like humidifiers, coffee machines, blenders, toasters, irons, etc.

– Design sets for contemporary theatre and dance, ships, and a fashion line in my own name.

– Design an electric car, a really good digital wireless music system, a moped, a bicycle, and digital camera (sorry to say that they are all very ugly!), and many more hotels (one in each city that I travel to).

PERSONAL (LIFE)

What is your life motto (Or core values) if any?

To be is to create.

To you, what are the most important things in life?

Every life is different, but the most important point is that you are on the earth for a reason and you need to find that reason. Your reason is your passion and the most luxurious life you can possibly have, is that you are pursuing your passion.

Why do you do what you do? (What drives you everyday)

My inspiration is to beautify the world. I always found myself having more ideas than companies could ever produce. I perpetually observe, analyze and dissect everything around me in our built environments.

I am most creative when I meet and talk to a client that is determined to do something new or original or inspiring. I’m all about contributing as much as I can while I am on this planet.

Who are the role models and influences in your life?

When I was younger I was obsessed with designers such as George Nelson (who started the GOOD DESIGN AWARDS in 1950), Charles Eames, Achille Castilioni, Sottsass, and so many other designers. I had a feeling deep inside that I possessed the talent, focus, and perseverance to one day become as successful as they were.

I ended up studying with Ettore Sottsass and Gaetano Pesce, working in Milano with Rodolfo Bonetto. I also studied from hundreds of lectures from Buckminster Fuller to George Nelson to Mario Bellini to Alessandro Mendini.

What are some things that many people don’t know about you?

I love sketching with my daughter. She beautifully draws and designs her own objects and hotels. She has all the great qualities of a designer – creative yet scientific, disciplined and focused. We visit museums / galleries / architecture landmarks around the world which has really sparked her curiosity.

What are your passions in life?

I love to work out and run, cook and work on my mental and spiritual health by going to lots of museums and galleries and embracing creativity on every level. I love sketching, painting, listening to music, reading about technology and materials.

Adding to that list – lying by a pool, sleeping, thinking about the world, about love, about social human behavior, about peace, about beauty, and about one romantic engaging fulgent energetic seductive inspiring place we call ‘Earth’.

What kind of legacy do you hope to leave behind?

I preach about how design shapes the future and culture. I believe that design is extremely consequential to our daily lives and can positively change behaviors of humans. Good design can touch you and embrace you. I hope my legacy will help the public understand that good design can shift and change human behavior, creating new social conditions for the benefit of mankind.

VIEWPOINTS

How do you think the advancement of new technologies like AR/VR and AI, will impact and influence design (In general) moving forward?

People like to assume that design moves with more superficial trends, but it is technology and humanity that drives us. Industrial design and Interior design are driven by designers embracing new technologies, whether it is material chemistry, production method, or mechanical invention.

It’s amazing what kind of spaces, images, artwork you can create in digital spaces, renderings, VR, etc. We need to make the physical world as beautiful and seductive as those AR images.

You mentioned that for a long time, design existed only for the elite and that for the last 20 years you have been striving to make design a public subject. Could you elaborate on that?

My enduring philosophy is that anything we touch, enjoy, or engage should give us a better experience. I was educated on the philosophy of universal design – a good object, furniture or space should work for both an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old alike. The big challenge of design is to create something that, although accessible to all consumers, touches people’s lives and gives them some sense of an elevated experience, pleasure and is original.

A bit more pleasurable. A bit more positive. In other words, it makes your life feel better. I think there needs to be some sort of engagement – be it visual engagement or aesthetic function – that you enjoy that just makes life better.

What is your advice to someone who may want to become a professional designer?

For young designers I always give the advice: be smart, be patient, learn to learn, learn to be really practical but imbue poetics, aesthetics, and new paradigms of our changing product landscape. You must find new languages, new semantics, new aesthetics, experiment with new material, and behavioral approaches.

Also always remember obvious HUMAN issues in the product like emotion, ease of use, technological advances, product methods, humor, meaning, positive energy and incorporate a proud spirit in the product.