Karim Rashid

Karim Rashid, industrial designer, author (born 18 September 1960 in Cairo, Egypt). Karim Rashid is best known for his fluid, curvilinear “biobject” designs, like his trademark Garbo wastebasket for Umbra. A prolific designer, Rashid has more than 3000 designs in circulation, ranging from household cleaning products to electronics and luxury jewellerry.

Early Life

The child of Egyptian and English parents, Rashid arrived as a breech birth with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, and doctors told his parents he would be developmentally delayed. He did not speak until he was four-and-a-half, and when he finally began to talk, it was with a severe speech impediment. The family briefly lived in London, England until his father, who was an artist, received a position as a set designer in Canada. They moved to Toronto where Rashid spent his youth.

During his adolescence, Rashid developed his now trademark eccentricities, wearing only homemade pink clothing, dying his hair pink and wearing pink nail polish. In high school, Rashid was one of the top math students in the country. In 1982, Rashid received his bachelor of industrial design from Carleton University in Ottawa and went on to complete his graduate studies in Naples, Italy under the tutelage of Ettore Sottsass and Gaetano Pesce.

Going solo

After being dismissed from a teaching job at the Rhode Island School of Design — he says it was because he was teaching philosophy instead of design — Rashid decided it was time to start his own firm. He took the bus to New York City and sent his designs to hundreds of companies, one of which hired him to create a line of tableware. Rashid opened his Manhattan offices in 1993 and continues to be based there today.

Garbo fame

In 1996, Rashid released the design for which he is best known, the Garbo garbage can. The small curvaceous waste-paper basket was produced by Canadian housewares company Umbra, and within two years had sold more than a million copies. Made of plastic and retailing at the time for between $10 and $12, the can represented the democratization of design — a fine art object for the masses. It appeared on the cover of Italian design magazine Interni, and its ads were featured in Vogue. So successful was the can that Rashid worried it might overshadow his later work. The Garbo is now exhibited in several museums around the world.

The birth of an aesthetic

As his designs made their way into circulation, Rashid was recognized as a leader in what came to be described as the “biobject” school. Never a fan of the angular rigidity of modernism, Rashid embraces the fluid and curvilinear. Though his designs often reference organic objects, they are usually made from inorganic materials, so much so that Time magazine dubbed him “the poet of plastic.” He is well known for his accessible designs like the Garbo can, the Oh Chair for Umbra, and the branding of Method cleaning products, but has also produced numerous designs for luxury goods brands like Veuve Clicquot and Swarovski.

Personal style

Around 2000, Rashid began to cultivate a unique personal look, throwing out all of his black clothing and wearing only white with dashes of pink. He also wears only Alain Mikli sunglasses, and owns six prototypes of a model worn in the Wim Wenders film Until the End of the World.

Beyond objects

Rashid now also designs interiors and exhibitions. He created the interior look of Marimoto Restaurant in Philadelphia, Semiramis Hotel in Athens, and boutique stores for Giorgio Armani. He has also produced technological designs for Samsung and LaCie and full-scale exhibitions for Audi and Deutsche Bank. Rashid has also created many books, starting with two monographs titled Evolution and I Want to Change the World followed by a compact portfolio in 2004, an exploration of computer graphics titled Digipop in 2005, and a guide to living titled Design Your Self in 2006. His latest monograph, Sketch, was published in 2011 and features 300 of Rashid’s interior architectural designs.

Awards

Rashid has won more than 300 awards in his career, including the Red Dot Award, the I.D. Magazine Annual Design Review, the IDSA Industrial Design Excellence Award, and the Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Award.