Chatting with Karim Rashid
Yesterday I got to sit down with one the most prolific designers of our generation, Karim Rashid for an insightful conversation on life, inspiration and design. This stunning human was Everything! Taking time out from his busy schedule at Design + Decor in Melbourne I was very honored to interview him.
Q – You have been described as one of the most prolific designers of your generation, with over 3000 designs in production across the world and several hundred awards.
Looking back on your career what advice would you give to young Karim in 1982 when you graduated?
I would give myself the advice to 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.
Q – It is rumoured that your body of work has collected around 300 awards and your style has been described as “sensual minimalism”, why do you feel your designs seem to connect with such a large global audience?
Ever since I was a child I wondered why there couldn’t be a more democratic design that everyone could enjoy. Since beginning my career I have had several agendas. Firstly is to democratize design. Secondly is to disseminate design culture to a larger audience. Thirdly is to make design more human. I am interested in showing the world how a contemporary physical world can be warm, soft, and pleasurable.
Q – I recently sat down with Designer and Potter Jonathan Adler – he explained that when he creates an object or product he asks himself, “would someone fight over this if it was left in the will?” What do you ask yourself before you release a new design?
I design for myself, not for any particularly consumer in mind. But I do ask myself if it adds something to the world, a nuance of originality, does it speak about the time in which we live.
Q – Who in 2016 inspires Karim Rashid and why?
I don’t take inspiration from any one place. person or thing. I travel constantly and get inspired usually by the unfamiliar so even the lost local places of industrial parks, airport hotels, alleyways in big cities, taxis in London, a gym in Hong Kong, a bathroom in Paris, a prop plane in Sweden, a cinema in Milan, a Renault in Sweden, food in Qatar, shanty towns in South Africa, anything that is new to my senses, unusual, odd, inspires me. Beauty is in everything if we want to see it.
Though in 2016 I was very saddened by the loss of two inspiring figures, David Bowie & Zaha Hadid. I loved David Bowie all my life. He continued to inspire me throughout his whole life. He re-invented himself – he moved along with the time. And Zaha managed to shape and inspire the world with her fluidity from macro to micro. The beauty about what she did , although progressive and innovative, Eloquently touched the souls of our public memory: it was not steeped in high art or elitism, and design for designers, but reached a resounding global acceptance. I try and do the same with my work. Touch people like a pop song, and embrace peoples experiences.
Q – How do you feel design effects the way we live?
Humans touch an average of 600 objects a day and the potential for them to help us or bring us joy is huge! 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 elevated experience and pleasure and is original. I am a perfectionist and an idealist. I believe that design and technology can reduce the encumbrances of daily life. Bad design acts as stressors, complicate tasks, and brings no beauty into the world.