“Thank God for the closing of the 20th Century. Now it is time to start fresh and begin a new chapter in our lives.”
So Karim Rashid, the hottest and most prolific young designer practicing in America today, ends his book, “Karim Rashid, I Want to Change the World,” the first comprehensive survey of his designs, products and the philosophy behind them.
Rather an ambitious goal, redesigning the planet, but Rashid already has made a few marks on it.
Born in Cairo, Egypt in 1960, raised in Canada, Rashid studied and worked with Ettore Sottsass.
He became a superstar by revolutionizing the concepts of Minimalist design with his fresh, colorful, sinuous and sensual objects and products. His on-the-edge designs quickly brought him to the brink of household name fame.
A few of his forward-thinking clients have been Sony, Issey Miyake, Nambe, Umbra, Prada, Tommy Hilfiger. His work already is in the collection of museums worldwide.
He also has vaporized the limitations most of us expect of designers.
“I design products, objects, furniture, graphics, identity, space, clothes, cosmetics, lighting, environments, and I feel that design is everything we interface. These things shape our lives,” he says.
As he explains in his book, he’s not just creating product, but a convergence of art, design, entertainment and business.
If the 21st Century does become the era of biotechnology, as predicted, Rashid will be at the forefront of defining its look, using materials that allow his curvy forms to flow like the body, echoing life forms rather than abstract structures.
One chapter is devoted to “Blobism,” bioshaped objects that are softer and rounder, and one of the edgeless looks he feels an aging population will find desirable as life becomes sharper-edged.
It is nearly impossible to explain this book in words–it is so different out of the box, one has to absorb it through its 250 pages of innovative photography.
But that is just what Rashid’s book is about, not just one more design book, but a peek into what the 21st Century may well hold for us as the re-design of our world becomes a force that propels economic growth and transforms life experience.