Karim Rashid
Industrial Designer
Biography
An internationally recognized leader in design, Karim Rashid shapes people’s everyday interactions with the world through his innovative approach to interior architecture, housewares and luxury goods.
The Cairo-born Canadian raised industrial designer has created products for high-end brands and mass consumption, working with companies such as Samsung, Method, Umbra, Citibank and Veuve Clicquot. A frequent winner of international awards, Rashid has designed the interiors of the Morimoto restaurant in Philadelphia, the Universita Metro Station in Naples and the Semiramis Hotel in Athens. More than 3,000 of his designs have been put into production and his work is on permanent display in 20 collections and galleries around the world.
Raised in Canada, Karim studied at Carleton University and graduated with a bachelor of industrial design in 1982. He completed graduate studies in Milan and Naples, under Ettore Sottsass and in the Rodolfo Bonetto studio. For seven years he worked at KAN Industrial Designers, where he co-founded the Babel Fashion Collection and several other design projects. In 1993, Rashid opened his own studio in New York City and now manages offices in China. He has produced such well-known designs as the Bobble water bottle and Umbra’s iconic Garbo waste can during a career of more than 20 years. In 2012, he collaborated with Danish furniture company BoConcept to produce the Ottawa Collection as a tribute to his early years of study in Ottawa.
Karim was awarded the 2004 A.D. Dunton Alumni Award of Distinction from Carleton University and holds honorary doctorate degrees from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C and Pratt Institute, New York. He has taught at OCAD, University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the Pratt Institute and the Rhode Island School of Design, and he continues to speak as a guest lecturer at many conferences and universities worldwide.
Karim has received over 300 awards, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art Collab Design Excellence Award, the 1999 George Nelson Award, several Red Dot Design Awards, several Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Awards, the I.D. Magazine Annual Design Review and the Silver IDEA Award from the Institute of Design in Illinois. In 2010, he was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame in New York City and was a winner of Designer Magazine’s 2012 Simon Taylor Award for Lifetime Achievement.
His books include From the Beginning (2014); Sketch (2012), a monograph of 300 drawings and computer renderings of selected works; KarimSpace (2009), Design Your Self (2006), Evolution (2004) and I Want to Change the World (2001). With designs for water bottles, furniture, appliances, laptops, jewelry and condominiums, Rashid’s work spans across the fields of fashion, architecture and art to transform our daily living.
