CANADA’S HOME DÉCOR & LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE

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46 CanadianHomeTrends.com spring 2012

e may not be a name that you know, although many will recognize his name from his vast body of work, and chances are that you have undoubtedly used something that he has created.

When I say that he is a highly awarded industrial designer, with designs including: luxury goods for Christofle, Veuve Clicquot, and Alessi, democratic products for Umbra, Bobble, and 3M, furniture for Bonaldo and Vondom, lighting for Artemide and Fabbian, high tech products for Asus and Samsung, surface design for Marburg and Abet Laminati, brand identity for Citibank and Sony Ericsson and packaging for Method, Paris Baguette, Kenzo and Hugo Boss, you will start to understand what I mean. He is also a visual artist with both permanent and occasional art shows throughout the world, including Museum of Modern Art in NYC, Centre Pompidou in Paris, an author of several books, a fashion designer, an interior designer with Semiramis hotel in Athens, Nhow hotel in Berlin, and a Metro Station in Naples Italy, and based on his work at the Toronto Interior Design Show, he is also a DJ – in his spare time.

It seemed to me that his body of work would indicate that he never sleeps, but not so. As he explained to me in an interview while he attended the Interior Design Show in Toronto, “It wasn’t uncommon for my father, who was an artist and a set designer at CBC, to get up early on a Saturday morning, go out and create a painting of a church, come home and sketch my mother, create a sketch of a dress, go out and buy some fabric, sew the dress, and she would wear it to an event that evening. He also recalls the influence of Expo 67. For the longest time Karim drew with voracity. He jokes, “I may have drawn and sketched before I talked”. The Expo brought to light the fact that one’s drawings and sketches can be brought into a three dimensional form. Drawings can be turned

H

Kaj watch by Alessiwww.alessi.com

Xperia arc 2 Phone cover Sony Ericssion

Pebble Collection 3M

ottawa chairDesign by Karim Rashid

www.boconcept.ca

room divider Design by Karim Rashidwww.boconcept.ca

ottawa table lampDesign by Karim Rashidwww.boconcept.ca

ottawa pendantDesign by Karim Rashid

www.boconcept.ca

fingerprint rugDesign by Karim Rashidwww.boconcept.ca

dishDesign by Karim Rashidwww.boconcept.ca

vasesDesign by Karim Rashid

www.boconcept.ca

designer profile | karim rashid

Text Glen peloso, Glen peloso Interiors

karim rashid

47CanadianHomeTrends.com spring 2012

that part of the world and are responsible for changing how the world views furniture. Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen, Poul Kjærholm, Poul Henningsen and Verner Panton, may be viewed as current trends or simply very good design. I asked Karim if he believes that he has created a “movement” much like the Dutch minimalists. Karim notes that being “knocked off ” is flattering and makes one realize that his designs are making an impact. The other area that he feels he will be associated with is, Digipop as he has termed it. It is “using the tools that we now have to create with, which includes computers and the fantastic images one can create. Essentially the laptop becomes the loom”. The creation of his digital patterning has been prominent in many of the designs that he has created including art works as well as fabric and surface designs. Over time he has also developed a series of “symbols” (55 in fact) that he believes are meant to be logos. You don’t currently see much of the digipop in his work with BoConcept but the “karimagologos” as he has termed them feature heavily in the BoConcept Ottawa collection. The ‘X’ that makes the handles of the cabinet and many others are part of the accessories collection including the lamps and tabletop dishes. The area rug also features his fingerprint giving the collection just a little more of him.

anything and everything that has happened in my life so far. It depends on how you look at the world.”

Many of his works are for luxury Italian brands which seem to be where he is often employed, however he likes being involved with design that is accessible to us. He is very proud of his work for Umbra (the Oh chair, and the Garbo in the 90’s) and has recently created a line with BoConcept called the Ottawa collection. “When I’m in Denmark (the home of BoConcept) I have the same feelings as I did 30 years ago when I graduated from design school in Ottawa. I thought it would be nice to pay homage to my 30 years in design”

While at the Milan furniture show working for another furniture manufacturer, Karim was approached by Klaus from BoConcept and as it worked out “BoConcept was one of the manufacturers on my radar as they make high design items at a moderate price point”. To Karim it means that this design will have a large reach. I wondered how he is able to create for such a varied group of clients who want designs that appeal to the luxury end of the market, as well as those that are appealing to a more affordable end of the market. Karim is involved in all aspects of design, even ensuring that the item can be made for the price point that will appeal to the market place. “The Oh chair has sections of plastic cut out to reduce the cost of the materials, hence ensuring the price point”. The appealing part of the chair was perhaps born of necessity.

With the Ottawa collection for BoConcept, Karim originally sketched and presented sixty possibilities and in conjunction with BoConcept, narrowed that offering to five. The working relationship was described by him as “a really wonderful collaborative effort”. BoConcept with a vast and long understanding of the clientele, and Karim with many ideas for what would work. The minimalist collection features a dining table with soft slanting under skirting and leg clusters that make it welcoming. The chairs, which are inspired by nature celebrate the welcome simplicity of the leaf that creates an elegant cross table profile when pushed in and also sitting on a cluster of legs. The sideboard has a sensual yet functional handle and the colourful customizable inserts are highly functional, as well as being beautiful. There is also a light hearted line of accessories that complement the set so that one can create an entire environment. The predominant colour, aside from lovely warm woods, is Kelly Green which again is not a colour that one can easily ignore.

The history of Danish design is vast and many masters of industrial design come from

into product, “Most of the furniture I grew up with was designed and created by my father”. The level of output seems to be part of his life and doesn’t seem extraordinary to him at all.

You have interacted with his design simply by shopping for the “Method” brand of home products at Shopper’s Drug Mart. If you looked at or picked up the bottle then you have seen his work which extends to: kettles, watches, cell phones, razors, scissors, chairs, lights, vacuum cleaners, tubs, kitchens, garbage cans etc. In fact he has over 3,000 designs in production around the world and is working in more than 40 countries worldwide. He makes his home in New York City, which is where his studio is also located but he was born in Cairo, Egypt and his formative years were spent originally in Canada where he went to school and finished university. He completed his B.A. at Carlton University in Ottawa and completed his graduate studies in Italy.

He has a passion for the interaction of people and design and even as we walked through his hotel to find a space to sit and talk, we discussed the fact that the space wasn’t conducive to a chat in the lobby and how the colours used seemed to allow patrons the ability to ignore the design, hence to avoid interaction with the space. At well over six feet, Karim is not easy to miss and can often be seen fashioning strong colours such as pink. I asked Karim about his penchant for pink, which has become a defining colour for him. In fact his signature is simply his first name, signed in pink. “Pink was a colour that I was drawn to since I was a child, largely because I have always found it a stimulating and positive colour. It is a colour that calls out for interaction and is in many of the works that I have created. I’m moving away from the colour a bit, as it seems to be branded to me and I don’t want to be limited by that”.

With many works in production and in many countries I asked Karim where he begins with a new industrial design project and how much background he researches about a company before he launches a project. “I dive in the deep end and find out everything I can. Understanding the company is the first thing and then it becomes a collaborative effort. I can’t be an expert but a jack of all trades. Next is just to observe how people use the object and make it something that becomes a help to living life and not an obstacle to it.” As he points out clearly, the world has changed and in the past when you may have had several months to develop a concept for either objects or complete spaces, we now have a couple of weeks. His inspiration for design is “accumulative and comes from

TableDesign by Karim Rashidwww.boconcept.ca

sideboardDesign by Karim Rashidwww.boconcept.ca

One has to love the roundness of many of the things that Karim designs. As he put it to me “nature creates nothing with sharp corners” and he believes that the reason we make products square is simply because that is how our machines have been designed to create products. This may not be the best way to create a product and indeed may be part of why the object becomes an obstacle to life. He believes that we have to embrace and look forward to technological advances and work with them. The machines we have now are capable of round edges and we should be embracing them. It’s a good thing that machines are developing rapidly, as one of the jobs he is currently excited about is the creation of wedding bands for marriage in space. Apparently you may soon be able to book a hall in space for your wedding day- Wedding Bands by Karim.

With so much to his credit I had to wonder what he would like to do next. So I asked what he has not yet designed that he would like to work on. “An electric car because it should be nothing like a regular gas driven car or a digital camera since they are all pathetically trying to be analog cameras or kitchen appliances or even a hair dryer. I have a big list of what needs redesigning like airplane interiors, shoes, a clothing line, a private house, a museum, public housing, and I could go on and on. The world is generally poorly designed and so much needs improvement on every level, from performance to comfort to beauty to accessibility”.

Garbino Eco-Greenumbra www.umbra.com

rullo Softlinewww.softline.dk

Karim sees himself not as a designer or author, or teacher, or even a disc jockey but as all of those things in one or simply put, an artist. In his definition of what an artist is, “People who want to do something original in the world” The Ottawa collection certainly isn’t his final “original something” in the world. I for one am happy to have the collection available to clients and even perhaps for myself.

Cups and PlatesDesign by Karim Rashidwww.boconcept.ca

The ottawa CollectionDesign by Karim Rashidwww.boconcept.ca

Karim Rashid