:: URBAN lighting ::

Karim Rashid, a leading figure in the fields of product, interior design, fashion, furniture, lighting and art, was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1960. He is half Egyptian, half English, and was raised mostly in Canada.

After receiving his Bachelor of Industrial Design in 1982 from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, he pursued graduate design studies in Naples, Italy, with Ettore Sottsass and others, then moved to Milan for one year at the Rodolfo Bonetto Studio. Since 1993, he's had his own practice in New York City.

His father was a set designer for film and television who saw architecture and space as forever shifting so he rearranged their home at least monthly. Following in his father's footsteps, Rashid often changes and rearranges the furnishings in his home, believing it should act as a canvas that reflects different moods, seasons or even states of mind. This perpetual change gives him creative energy, which has led him to design most of the products and furniture in his home.

Karim believes design rules are meant to be broken. With more than 50 awards to his credit, Rashid is known as a constant innovator and has designed everything from furniture to fragrance bottles and fine crystal to plastic trash cans. When it comes to color, form and function, Karim Rashid is an industrial designer who plays by his own set of rules. Karim Rashid's designs are as singular, colorful and unmistakable as the man himself, incorporating vibrant colors and organic shapes for interiors that always delight and surprise.

Karim Rashid is best known for bringing his democratic design sensibility to the masses. Designing for an impressive array of clients from Alessi to Georg Jensen, Umbra to Prada, Miyake to Method, Karim is radically changing the aesthetics of product design and the very nature of the consumer culture. To date he has had some 2000 objects put into production and has successfully entered the realm of architecture and interiors as evidenced by the design of the Morimoto restaurant in Philadelphia and Semiramis hotel in Athens which won a SLEEP.05 European Hotel Design Award. Karim was awarded the 2006 Honorary Doctorate from the Ontario College of Art and Design.

Other awards include the 2005 Honorary Doctorate from Corcoran College, 2005 Pratt Legends Award, 2004 A.D. Dunton Alumni Award of Distinction from his alma mater, 2002 ID Magazine Annual Design Review Best of Category, and 2003 best Retail Store in the USA. His work is in the permanent collections of 14 Museums worldwide including MoMA and SFMoMA and he exhibits art in various galleries. Karim was an associate Professor of Industrial Design for 10 years and is now a frequent guest lecturer at universities and conferences globally. Karim has just published his guide to living "Design Your Self' from Regan Books, 'Digipop' a digital exploration of computer graphics (Taschen 2005), a portfolio book published by Chronicle books (2004), as well two monographs titled 'Evolution' (Universe, 2004) and 'I Want to Change the World'(Rizzoli, 2001). He edited the International Design Yearbook 18 for Calmann and King 2003 and released two CD's on boutique label, Neverstop.