Word: rashid
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They may well be gnawing their knuckles over that decision right now because Rashid's conquest of the realm of product design is all but complete. A lush and suitably worshipful retrospective of his work hits bookstores this month. There was a crowd around anything with his stamp on it--including stools, chess sets and storage units--at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City in May. More than 2 million North Americans are throwing their rubbish into a receptacle he designed, while 750,000 or so park their rears on one of his cheapo plastic chairs...
...there's one thing Karim Rashid hates, it's trophies. The 40-year-old designer has more than 40 of them, from big international ones like the 1999 George Nelson Award (given for breakthrough furniture design), to quaint little Canadian ones like Designer of the Year 2001. "It came with a little pin," says Rashid, "and a...a...very nice..." He tries to describe the shape of the award with his hands but gives up. "It's time that whole trophy thing changes. It's kitsch. They're functionless things." Rashid was asked to design a trophy for the DaimlerChrysler...
Trophies he may despise, but accolades Rashid can handle. The problem with being the Most Famous Industrial Designer in All the Americas is that you're still less famous than someone who got kicked off Survivor the first week. Most people cannot name the designer of one nonclothing item in their homes. Rashid, who was born in Egypt, raised in Canada and is living in New York City, is more than happy to bring an end to this anonymity. Not just because he wants to be famous, although there seems to be that, but because he believes design should...
...many ways Rashid is more like an itinerant industrial evangelist than a designer. He traveled 200 days last year. He claims to have been to every major mall in the country, where he signs his products in high-end design stores and trolls about observing humans interacting with the objects around them. He has taught at design schools for more than a decade, and his work has been in 11 art shows in the past eight months. But mostly he has proselytized the barbarians--corporate America. And like any good missionary, he has learned to speak the language...
...Most industrial-design studios try to interpret a client's needs and come up with a style," says Paul Rowan, co-founder of housewares manufacturer Umbra. "Karim has his own personal vision." It helps that Rashid's vision incorporates things that Rowan needs, like a design that will stack and ship easily and that creates little waste in the making...