Interview with Karim Rashid
Karim Rashid is one of the world’s most prolific designers. He’s forward-thinking and produces work that “speaks of the now”. He coined the term ‘blobject’ (a blob object), has won more than 300 awards, and has more than 3,000 designs in production. Add to that the fact he designs everything from furniture, fashion, lighting, art, digital graphics, board games, fountain pens, and even hotels, and you can start to see why he’s prolific.
Rashid was born in Cairo, then moved to England, Canada, Italy, and today finds himself based in New York City, along with his studio. His studio is almost like a museum of contemporary art, where on display are his many, many designs. He’s renowned for one of his early designs for Finnish design company Umbra, the Garbo can, which can now be found at in New York City’s MoMA. His collections often see innovative shapes and forms, which usually eschew standard design principals, yet are far from mere novelty like the Float Sofa, Koochy Sofa, the Kant Stool or most recently, a series of very sleek aluminum Pepsi bottles for the brand to use at special events.
Karim also writes of his exploits, having numerous books published, including I Want To Change The World, an overview of his design and process, Design Yourself, where he shares his manifesto with us, and Digipop where he explores computer graphics.
We spoke with Rashid about his heritage, evolution as a designer, love of colour and current projects, in anticipation of his headline at Decor + Design in Melbourne, Australia this July.
fluoro. Firstly, tell us who you are and what do you create?
Karim Rashid. I consider myself more a cultural shaper than a hard-core industrial designer or artist, because there’s this weird drive internally to do something original in the world but touch many people’s experiences.
My designs are a manifestation of my soul, like a composer creating music. I get really passionate about designing a pen, jewelry, perfume bottle, liquor bottle, coffee cup, as much as I do designing a brand identity, a carpet, a flooring, furniture, interior design, or a building I can shape an entire human holistic experience from the micro to the macro.
f. Does your Egyptian heritage influence your work?
KR. I can’t say my Egyptian heritage has consciously shaped my concept of design but we all are shaped by our DNA that comes out subconsciously. For example, I only realised about 10 years ago that my symbols are similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. I never thought about it before then and wondered why I developed the language. I developed this language over a period of 30 years. It started when I was designing power tools for Black and Decker, USA in the mid-eighties. Black & Decker refused to give designers credit for work so I created a symbol that I embedded into the plastic molding. It was a way of marking my work, of denoting my creative input. Then I continued to create more symbols, each with a certain meaning.
It took me 44 years to return to Egypt after my family and I left in 1962 for England. When I arrived back in Cairo I immediately felt the city’s exuberance run through my blood stream. It is a phenomenal exotic place where origins of our human civilisations are omnipresent. But at the same time it was foreign and not part of my culture anymore. I was too young when I left and my mother was English and my father never returning or talked much about the culture, so I never learned Arabic. But I am half English and spent many more years in England and Canada and the USA than in Egypt.
f. Where did this love for colour and the use of futuristic elements come from?
KR. Colour is life and for me, colour is a way of dealing with and touching our emotions, our psyche, and our spiritual being. I think about using colours to create the experience, or human engagement of that certain task or function. I always say: use colour to express yourself. Don’t be afraid of that bright orange chair. Paint your wall lime green. Coloured glass looks great in bathrooms. Be brave when it comes to carpets, countertops, and tables. Colour is beautiful and it’s all about self-expression. Be yourself.
My work speaks about the now. I am completely against the idea of trying to imitate and copy old styles. Architecture and design should be a mirror of our time. I believe that everything physical that is new should comment or reflect and embrace the Digital Age in one way or another, be it a production method, a new material, or a digital language, a new way of living. If I buy a car today I expect new beautiful forms, colors, and finishes, the latest technology, highest safety, the best comfort, the greatest efficiency, and a language and sensibility of the time in which I live. I would not buy a horse and buggy, play records on a gramophone, and use a dial telephone. I would not sit in a spindle back shaker chair or sleep on a straw mattress with a dangerous wrought iron headboard or have angels and effigies carved into my facade. We should not repeat the past. The past has been done. When we design we use contemporary criteria to shape the future.
f. How have you evolved over the decades?
KR. Design must evolve us – and create a beautification and betterment for society. Over the years my designs have been true to my vision but changed with technology. There were always designs I wanted to create but were technologically impossible. Technological 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.
It can be difficult to see style in the present. Only posthumously can we recognise a trend. But I think style and design is driven by new technologies. Designs should and do change with the introduction of new technologies. All-important pieces over the last century became iconic because they were created with new technology. The Breuer chair, for example, used steel tube bending from a bicycle factory. The Alvar Aalto chair used plywood tube technology inspired by a local fabricator of wooden sewage tubes, etc. The first plastic molded monobloc chair existed because we had the resin technology and injection machine technology to create it. The Eames embraced one of the first compound bent plywood machines. Industrial design is driven by designers embracing new technologies whether they are materials, production methods, or mechanical inventions. So future innovation will depend on how we as designers embrace newness. Maybe people like to assume that design moves with more superficial trends but it is technology that drives us.
f. How does your creative process commence? Do you start sketching, researching, meditating…?
KR. Every project is different and usually the design process is different as well. It is my diversity that affords me the ability to cross-pollinate ideas, materials, behaviors, aesthetics and language from one typology to the other. I fill sketchbooks with my concepts and then I bring my designs back to the studio. It is imperative to start with the concept then develop a form around it. One can think sculpturally and conceptually of the idea. My team creates 3D renders of my ideas, as well as research materials, production processes.
f. How do ensure your mark is left on everything you create, no matter the project, client or location?
KR. I’m contributing as much as I can while I am on this planet. Any work I do must have a least some nuance of originality in it. So I strive for that. I also try and produce work that speaks about the age in which I live, the contemporary world that is casual digital, flexible, technological, and human.
f. Is there another designer/s you greatly admire?
KR. As an undergraduate studying in Italy, Ettore Sottsass taught me not to be too much of an artist in order to be a great designer. I keep his vases and a few Memphis works around to remind me of this. An artist is not a designer, and a designer is not an artist. Looking at his work brings me immense joy and drives me to create objects that will bring others joy and more importantly that constantly question the status quo. Also I studied briefly with Gaetano Pesce and Adries Von Onck. I took night classes with Achille Castiglione at the Polytechnic and I worked with Rodolfo Bonetto over a year. I was very inspired and interested in Alchimia, Mendini, and Alessandro Guerrieri, Superstudio, Archizoom, Gio Ponti, and Bruno Munari. Some of my favorite designers were Luigi Colani, Raymond Lowey, and Lazlo Moholy Nagy.
f. Who would you like to collaborate with in the future?
KR. l would love to design for Tesla, Bang & Olufsen and I would like to work with companies such as Adidas, Bose, Boeing, Ferrero, H&M, T-Fal, Numark, Conair, Bionaire, Kartell, Herman Miller, Braun, IKEA, Vitra, Fiat, Vespa, Hugo Boss, Levi’s, and other fashion brands and too many others to list … I think they all make intelligent products but some lack real human connections and my language and philosophy could really help shape their brand-future.
I would like to design low-income housing, art galleries, more retail shops, a museum, products for aging population, and more humanitarian projects that can help save the earth. And I would like to design a biodegradable bucket for Rubbermaid for my ‘ BUCKET’ list … haha.
f. What do you hope to pass onto the next generation of designers?
KR. 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, and meaning and a positive energetic and proud spirit in the product. This is what is missing! Many products have a very short shelf-life, and they must capture the spirit of the time in their product lines and not worry about looking, behaving, performing like everyone else.
f. You’ll be discussing the ‘future of design’ at the Decor + Design seminar in Australia. Why have you selected this topic?
KR. 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. Products and furniture must deal with our emotional ground therefore increasing the popular imagination and experience. Bad design creates encumbrances, act as stressors, complicate tasks, and bring no beauty into the world.
f. What do you think is the future of design?
KR. The future holds infinite possibilities but most importantly the world is finally becoming contemporary and past styles are finally being realised as just pastiche of trends. I see the future of our aesthetic world crossing all the aesthetic disciplines so that design, art, architecture, fashion, food, music, fuse together to increase our experiences and bring greater pleasure to our material and immaterial lives. Design will change along with technology. Industrial design is driven by designers embracing new technologies, whether it is material, production method, or mechanical invention. So future innovation will depend on how we as designers embrace newness. Maybe people like to assume that design moves with more superficial trends but it is technology that drives us.
f. Tell us about one standout project you’re currently working on and its importance to you.
KR. I’m working on Temptation, an adult-only 500-room resort in Cancun for Original Hotels. What excited most about taking this unprecedented project is that I have an interesting subject. The hotel itself, the brand, Original Hotels, has hotels that allow the sense of sexual freedom and being, and that in itself doesn’t exist elsewhere. My inspiration was really the human body and the interaction of humans and this notion of bringing people together. When you like somebody that kind of connection, so I designed the spaces around the notion of connectivity. I think what’s important is to design experiences that will combine to create an experience that one will never have at home. It will create an experience that will be set in the public memory. Really erotic, sensual, abstracted forms. Once you move into the hotel I think you’ll be quite shocked by the spaces.
Armed with infinite possibilities and the drive to keep creating and innovating, Rashid will continue his reign in the world of design. Decor + Design runs from Thursday 21 – Sunday 24 July 2016 at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre in Australia. Information on the event and Rashid’s involvement can be found here.
Interview: Audrey Bugeja, Managing Editor, fluoro.
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saw an interview on dw- germany, 2 yrs back, from that was the moment, still love and enjoy ur work.