Karim Rashid is the man who made pink masculine - even using it to decorate banks. Designers should look to their own social lives for inspiration, he tells Alanna Gallagher
Karim Rashid is creator of the blobject, everyday items given coats of poptastic colour and sensuous curvy shaping. Considered a white knight in design circles for bringing well-made products to the masses, he also looks the part.
Dressed all in white, the larger-than-life Rashid took to the stage in Dublin's Westin Hotel to deliver his design manifesto, to launch Dublin Design Week 2007. The half-Egyptian, half English creator has movie-star looks and oodles of charisma. He grew up in Toronto but lives in New York. He even claimed an Irish grandmother on the night, but this might have been a crowd-pleasing tactic.
He is inspiring and egomaniacal in equal proportions, like the appletini cocktails they served on the night. The poet of plastic, as he has been monikered by Time magazine, is a big colourist. Crazy coloured furnishings and accessories surrounded by dentist white light is his signature style. He relegated his black wardrobe to the recycling bin almost a decade ago. And it has proved a successful move. The all-white suit, his height and trademark shades immediately raise his profile. After all, much of design's middle and lower echelons are swathed in black so what better way to stand out from the crowd? Like Elvis, he has adopted crepe-soled shoes and designer shades to complete the look. But he also embraces feminine touches such as perfectly painted nails.
His early inspiration came from his parents. His father, a set designer, also liked to paint. "His paintings were of vivid colour which was in stark contrast to the white monochromatic mood of the 1970s that I had embraced. But subliminally I took it all in. The human eye can see 1,600 colours. Design needs to exploit of that full sensorial phenomena."
Pink plays a big part in his colour palette. "I love pink but it has to go beyond the cliché that is Barbie. GQ magazine said I changed the world because I had made pink masculine. I think this is one of the greatest compliments I've ever received."
My Hotel, a current job he's working on in Brighton, due to open in February 2008, has men's bathrooms decorated in pink. The ladies' toilets are bedecked in blue.
Originally an industrial designer, Rashid has successfully made the lucrative move into interior design. His Deutsche Bank headquarters in Cologne in 2006 completely rethinks the way corporations should present their spaces. The Rashid manifesto celebrates the successful marriage of form and commerce, the business of beauty. Every business should be completely concerned with beauty, he says - it is after all a collective human need.
"My approach is a reflection of the world we live in. Design is about shaping that world. Design is for everybody and for the commercial world. I believe that we could be living in an entirely different world - one that is full of real contemporary inspiring objects, spaces, places, worlds, spirits and experiences."
And he lives the lifestyle at home. "At home everything we have in the house was designed by me." That is, except the fridge, but recently he added kitchen appliances for Gorenje to his list of some 2,500 products. It includes a fridge, a cooker and microwave and a dishwasher. "I think we should touch things less. There's so much bacteria in our everyday lives. Everything should be heat sensitive, from taps to toilet flushers. Everything in my home is automatic."
This road testing of gadgets is why he says he's so successful. "I am so, so practical and extremely grounded, which makes me a good designer. I'm tired of fluff design. I call it styling. It's design that looks good but doesn't work."
Rashid has created design that is democratic. Like him or loathe him, there's no doubt that the addition of his name to a brand helps sell the product. His "Dirt Devil Kurv Hand Vac, 2007" sold two and a half million units in six months. The US-based Method soaps and wipes have sold 10 million units, while his 1995 Garbo garbage can has clocked up sales of seven million.
"You can make the most radical thing, but if they're well-priced people will buy. Good design at the right price point is where commerce meets form." Think pink and hear the tills go kerchink.
"The only thing a brand can do to differentiate itself is to employ a designer," explains Rashid. "Consumers embrace a brand through its design." Apple products are a good example of this, he says.
"In creating ideas designers need to ask if they really are taking it to the next level or repeating an archetype, he continues. "And if it isn't taking you to the next level then it's just a fake icon, reiterating classic designs like fashion. Technology has afforded us a really better world. It is the way we are evolving and surviving. My iBook is my loom on which I make decoration. My designs speak about the 'now'. Irish designers need to look at themselves and their social scenes to be receptive to new ideas, as opposed to looking at magazines for global trends to be inspired."
His criteria for good design is not micro but macro markets, which might explain how he's making products and designing interiors in 35 different countries and why so many bars, nightclubs and hotels the world over look the same.
But he insists we are all still individualists. "Don't let the media shape you. Build your own personal character. Global diversification is mixing and becoming one world. What differentiates us as individuals is our fingerprints. So don't try to be like someone else. You only live once so enjoy every experience you can."
This from a man who survived wearing a pink jumpsuit to school in the 1970s - that takes guts. This is something he has in spades. He laments the boxes straight men have put themselves into, and when I admire his well manicured white polished nails he tells me he constantly gets compliments from business men just a decade older than he is. "They say, I like your nails. It's not meant as a come-on, just a compliment, issued with just a tinge of lament, for their own lack of unconformity to explore their own personal style."
While Rashid's output is staggering, it is his technology and music-related products that seem to really excite him. He has three iPods full of music, which he doesn't download. Instead he buys CDs and uploads the music from them. "The musical quality is of a much higher quality, as much as 10 times higher."
His Flo sound panels for Swedish company Offecct are pure elegance, while his DJ Kreemy decks table for Pure Design in white, orange, sulphur yellow and trademark pink will make any living-room disco look special.
Formerly, Rashid was a DJ and he still likes to DJ in his rare spare time. Incidentally he's available for hire, if the price is right. I like the idea of having a superstar DJ like him doing the office Christmas do. Say goodbye to the Birdie Song and Conga. Instead, expect the unexpected. "The ideal Christmas clincher for me would be a mix of Roberta Flack's The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and I have a 1977 disco version of Talking Heads' Psycho Killer that no-one has ever heard of that'd shake up the dance floor."
Contact Karim Rashid's New York office on + 1-212-3378078 or visit www.karimrashid.com. Rashid launched Dublin Design Week 2007 in association with Bombay Sapphire. For details on talks and workshops held, visit www.designweek.ie
