Karim Rashid - Industrial Designer Changing The World

Karim Rashid: I Want to Change the World Book

Famed Industrial Designer Karim Rashid was recently highlighted by New York Magazine as "One Of Five New Yorkers Who Wear Only One Color Everyday".
I am a big enthusiast of Karim Rashid and it is fun to see the industrial designer being showcased, but his distinct color-wardrobe style is not the reason for his fame, it's just an idiosyncracy. Rashid is important because of his uniquely-superb talent, unequaled in a field of superb design talent.

At 40, he's been called the most prolific designer of his generation. In only fifteen years he has designed over 800 products, 42 of which are included in the permanent collections of the world's best-known museums.

An excellent example of a Rashid 'product' is the Morimoto Japanese Restaurant, an internationally reknown trendy spot offering one unconventional surprise after another. Home to master chef Masaharu Morimoto, Rashid created a restaurant showplace production truely worthy of Morimoto, known as the creator of elaborate Japanese fusion cuisine creations and series Iron Chef star, where cooks face off like samurai in culinary duels. The designer reinvented the traditional Japanese model of patrons eating together at long tables, with a succession of tables for four to six people, with a row of tables for two along each of the side walls. The tables have matt glass dividers illuminated by gradually changing color/intensity LEDs flooding the glass tables and custom designed white leather seats. The sushi bar with yellow light at the end of the restaurant highlights Masaharu Morimoto while he creates the famous dishes that delight the eye and the palate. (To read more on the architectural detail of the fabulous restaurant, go to architecture journal, FloorNature Re Morimoto Restaurant. )

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Rashid was born in Cairo, is half Egyptian, half English, was raised in Canada and is now practicing in New York. His clients are an impressive array from Alessi to Dirt Devil, Umbra to Prada, Miyake to Method, he has published books and computer programs.

Karim Rashid is known for radically changing the aesthetics of product design and the very nature of the consumer culture.

Below are two photo slideshows, one with more photos of the Morimoto Restaurant, the other, a vignette I assembled of some of Rashid's products. His shop is The Karim Rashid Shop and his design website is http://www.karimrashid.com/. Check his stuff out - to me, anyone who says he wants to change the world - and can back it up - well, he's worth investing a moment or two of my time in what he has to say or show us. As a designer / artist, I am a lifetime student of seeing, and when Rashid's name comes to my mind, I personally use the moment as a seeing tool. I look around at my everyday environment / surroundings including trying to look around at the day, seeing that day itself as a quantity. In these ways I allow my eyes to see the very nature of my own everyday things .

Karim Rashid Products - Click For Slideshow & Comments

Karim Rashid Design Morimoto Restaurant Philadelphia - Click for Slideshow & Comments