Designer Karim Rashid at his studio in New York

here we are in New York City on 54th Street between 9th and 10th Avenue we're here to be designer Terry Murphy that is news feed you right there let's meet Karen clear what they have to say about the world of design from his point of view and how did it all start how did you get into design in the first place yeah you know I I don't think I have really thought otherwise so when I was a child my thought my father set designer for film and television to begin with so every weekend for example in my brother has children we would spend it with him in the studio and he'll be making models so we'd be sitting on the floor drawing so it became a very organic process I see of observing my father and also at home he was quite uh he was one of these more Renaissance types and then that's how you know I was like as I grew older I mean I read a lot of books because my father would have all these books in the house and he brought me a book around my house maybe twelve on Raymond Loewy and I remember being so young thinking that all these physical things in my room and that people are designing that it was a tendency and we've been up till I would say quite recent because design is really now a public subject but most people really never really considered with all these physical where these physical things are coming from when we talk design we talk to architectural fashion but we didn't really talk about industrial design or product design or you know so but I was curious and in fact you know and then when I got to university the hard part was one of university I thought my my you know what I mean I have to make a decision here because all this and I realize all the world's so specialized I thought for some reason there's this blog field called design so I realize how long study architecture then because the guys I knew all the people I looked up to the designer the beautiful coffee machines and things in Italy they were all architects and it somehow the university-wide architecture I applied too late I got this letter saying oh we're opening up a new program called industrial design and with this program you can segue in target so I took it when ain't were thinking this is what I do and next thing you know when I started taking the design studios and in this program I was selected it's faith I went into exactly into it where I always wanted to be Easter yeah then I understand more about the Renaissance person tear aggression because in my opinion you are very hard to pinpoint what you actually are you have have you made everything or it is you have a dream project well yeah it's funny that I have it outside a lot actually appear in it for me as long as have a good client because the matter what scale you know meaning a good client meaning that someone who's wants to do something that's progressive but also something that's relevant to culture that would make some sort of change that's responsible it's marginal that so but in the sense of them doing so much and moving forward I think that you can you can really never do too much in any I think typology meaning is always room to expand I get more excited a little bit now with opportunities of new technologies and things that I haven't done before and what I like about that is I can take all the experiences I have some of those other categories and topologies and move them into them into that space or into that thing and for me design is that it's kind of a seamless part of making human experiences you know years ago when I studied I study with Ettore Sottsass for short long idly and he said to me he said you know nothing really needs to exist unless it's bringing some sense of heightened experience and I love that because I thought you know we have a lot of things in this world that are really just more like as john baudrillard would say just obstacles in everyday life and versus things that are really bringing more to us and more many levels I mean even been do more to someone emotionally but you definitely have been sent more to someone even in a more anthropometric organ amma claim or covers you can bring more to somebody in a sense of that you're worrying about the ecology believing something that's actually sustainable you can get many levels to bring value that's saying and meaning the other side of it is of course these things that i would love to do that are very difficult to get these kind of jobs like i'd love to design some sort of electric vehicle ever I say vehicle because I don't like cars I see I spent my life actually critiquing the physical world and seeing how things can be improved and improved on every level I think a lot of the built environment actually doesn't really work so we have this amazing amount of physical stuff that really in a way is not providing us that elevated experience and not making life by any means better it's just more it's like more for the sake of more I love critiquing and seeing how this what could be done it's like better and I'm not talking about the aesthetic point of view talking about from the entire experience yeah so that's actually what you are doing then that you are shaping the culture rather than designing just stuff yeah is that something that you have thought out that you wanted to do yeah III you know I thought about a long time ago because when I was educated I think I always had to get in a very what I would call hard core inductor design way which was really about making products that were on every level to meeting certain big criteria yeah I would believe that industry they were here for industry meeting over here for like liaisons like you humanizes I would say between industry and everyday life and I would say with design and there's two ways to kind of attack design one is that you you observe enough and then you you design around an existing behavior or you actually can develop a better and new behavior and change culture to shift in a different way so that's alright I think that's the de broader and that's a responsibility of the profession when I travel the world and I see a lot of design fairs and meet young designers and I speak a lot of schools I see this his tendency of students or young designers struggling with doing some artistic versus doing something that would change and help the world and also almost like that would be the agenda is in the wrong place it is kind of a notion living by a bit what I call addition by subtraction which is you know whatever I bring into the world I should take something away from the room or if I have this real minimal approach to life where I do not try enough to have these physical money and all these sorts of things by every six experiments because I see that they have a relationship to how I can see the world and how I can design a better world for others I think that that designers and artists are becoming the new politicians of today politicians normally they just talk whereas designers and artists are doing and asking the questions what's your take on that yeah I think I think it appear I've never heard anybody sitting and I think it's fantastic and interesting now she's a it's kind of a growing remark I would have to say that it's a little bit more I would say designer and it's an architect's thing these are this stuff so breath ik to be a good politician you need to be going to be selfless and I think that all politics that's interesting you say that are really about shaping cultural and social behaviors which hopefully for good designers that's what designers are due to they shaped the landscape of the city they shaped the way the city operates they shape the way we navigate from A to B you know these these are so they are very proactive let's say politically and I've said for years as you know that are a design is not just a creative act by any means it is a social act it was just it was a political act and I and it's and it's a it's animo a lot and it's an economic act because without design we really would not have this the the industry the production of goods and the way we have the way the world works now that we're all in a way half the power now personally one of every one of us as consumers so I would say that this love affairs or the kings or the dynasties or the politicians or the or the capitalists that have power anymore it's each one of us individually because the digital age has empowered that so the digital age is empowered each one of us have a voice and each one has to be that creative tools so it's empowered creativity and my theory about not welcome to philosophical with my theory is that if there's some sort of master plan it is that the digital age came about to rescue the earth and save us zeros and ones in a cleansing your language and a singular language is lying as all to communicate cross boundaries and borders we don't worry in the digital age about territories we don't worry about racial differences we don't worry about create we don't work we are all starting to just be who we are to be able to create in this world we're finally opening the doors up to allow everybody to be creative almost for like the first time in human existence and I have this theory that we're here only really to create as the reason you promised or if it's creation and then there's intellectual creation in the electrification is what progresses and evolves us as human beings and keeps in a way exists our existence alive every one of us are creative and everyone that does have the power in crave we just need to be encouraged if you were to give the young person that wants to become a designer and advice what would that be it's one is perseverance meaning that you have to keep going because it's very easy to become very quickly disillusioned about the profession the second of all is to really focus on some level of improvement that you're actually contributed to the world and then third part about it is is to eventually I guess find your voice so you know rigid allottee plays a big big big part of this and which goes back to that whole are given of individuality because you know we're all if we're all creative then in fact we should all be doing something that's original because we all have a different

Channel: Peer Eriksson

Views: 9,559

Keywords: Karim Rashid (Visual Artist), mypeer, Peer Eriksson, Mypper.tv, New York City (City/Town/Village), Design (Industry), Furniture (Industry), art, Interior Design (Industry)

Id: s9lLUg481nw

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 24 2015