Karim Rashid: A prestigious curriculum
Karim Rashid was born in Cairo in 1960. Half English and half Egyptian, he spent most of his life in Canada. In 1982 he received his degree in Industrial Design from the Carleton University of Ottawa, Canada, to then continue specialising in design in Naples, Italy at a number of studios, including that of Ettore Sottsass. He then spent a year in Milan at the Rodolfo D42Bonetto studio. Upon his return to Canada, he worked with KAN Industrial Designers for seven years; it was during this period that he co-founded and created the Babel Fashion Collection and North in the years between 1985 and 1991. In 1993 he opened his own studio in New York and since then he has worked for a number of foreign clients including Prada, Giorgio Armani, Foscarini, Guzzini, Zanotta, Estee Lauder and Issey Miyake.
Over the years he has won numerous prizes: The Good Design Award (2003) for the Kurve chair designed for Neinkamper and the I.D. Magazine’s Annual Design Review Awards (2002), just to name two. More than 70 of his creations are part of permanent collection and his design products have been displayed in numerous art museums in the United States (MoMa - New York, Chicago Athenaeum - Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art - Miami), in Europe (British Design Museum - London, Groningen Museum – Groningen, Holland) and in the rest of the world (Tokyo Gas - Tokyo).
Karim Rashid has served on the juries for numerous international contests and he has collaborated with design magazines. For 10 years he taught Industrial Design at the Philadelphia University of the Arts, Pratt Institute, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Ontario College of Art. Currently and he holds conferences all over the world. Karim Rashid has published two books: “I want to change the world”, ed. Rizzoli, Universal collection and the International Design Yearbook 18, ed. Laurence King Publishing. During the 2005 Furniture Exhibition, Karim Rashid will present his latest book, entitled “Evolution”, also published by Rizzoli in the Universal Collection.
He has designed the collections “Uno e Zero” for Della Rovere. In 2008, the desk Uno won the Goog Design Award.
