Design rule by Karim Rashid applied to covid-19
Two years ago I read an interview from Karim Rashid. In the interview I was inspired by the simplicity of Karim Rashid design model of work in the middle of his career. However, it was not the design model what surprised me, because there was none. Design nowadays is complex, it is a fully theoretical and practical discipline, with a myriad of applications across many fields. Design is not easy to apprehend. Karim Rashid shed light on the creative purpose and a simpler answer made my comprehension of design, innovation, and creativity much simpler and easier. From that point I found myself readier to act upon the ideas I want to give life.
The interview title is: Karim Rashid: The Man Who Wants to Change the World, written by Catia Fernandes, published in Roof Magazine Portugal, in Jan/Feb 2018 issue, pages 34–40.
About Karim Rashid
Before telling you the “design rule”, some brief words about Karim Rashid himself. He was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1960 and he was raised on Ottawa, Canada, where he studied industrial design. From there he continued to study in Naples and Milan, Italy. After years of professional experience, he decided to open his private design studio. In 1993 he opened it in New York.
I am a CULTURAL SHAPER, DESIGNER, cultural engineer, author, KRITIK, DEEJAY, ARTIST, VISIONIST, SKULPTOR, PROFESSOR, designpreacher, globalover, WANKER, smooth talker, best-dressed designer, and OCD VIRGO.
The man who changed the world
From the values of Karim Rashid we can depict the democratization of design. His effort to widen the design audience is very clear. From a exclusive feature for the elites and for the small subcultures, design is now everywhere, a feature of any house, enterprise strategy and mind of every culture and person — in one way or another. Karim Rashid is one of the main responsibles for that.
In 1993 I found myself in New York city, penniless, and started drawing objects romanticizing about the beautiful world I always wanted to shape. When I started my office, after approaching about 100 companies from Lazy Boy to Gillette, and I only got one client. I designed a collection of tabletop objects for Nambé, in Santa Fe, that became very successful. They sold about $3,000,000 a year and entered permanent museum collections. This relationship gave me the confidence that I could really contribute some meaningful and successful objects into the world.
The design rule is simple:
Design to a new context romanticizing about the beautiful world I always wanted to shape
The detail
Karim Rashid changed the world first by changing his own world. Second, he was forced to invent a style to differentiate the brand new studio from others, and from his previously work. Third, he had to create from the personal motto, from the new developed style.
First, Karim Rashid took the risk to be successful. By opening his private studio, he changed his professional reality, and that driven a world change right towards himself.
Simultaneously — Second and Third — he started to draw objects to fit in a world he envisioned which he wanted to (re)shape. This world was beautiful and it deserved to be romanticized.
The rest is history.
Design rule by Karim Rashid applied to covid-19
SARS-CoV-2 — Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 — is changing our society. Part of these changes will be permanent, and we have to accept it. To avoid further transmission we are been told to avoid, restrict, and eliminate unnecessary social contact. The reduction of social contact alone can have disastrous effects on how modern, industrialized, ocidentalized societies work.
Globally we were not prepared, and it does not matter if some had rang the calamity alarms before. It does not matter because the preparedness did not improve whatsoever. Words don’t change anything. Moral speeches do not change anything. Ideas, models, plans, strategies, goodwill, ethics, do not change anything. Actions and objects do. Only actions and objects can change the world.
Karim Rashid’s studio opening in New York is very clear and it should be interpreted as a statement. He designed objects for a beautiful world that did not exist before. His desire to bring beauty and utility to everyone on the practical level brought him notoriety and success.
Thus, what if we use the same design rule now to design a world that — differently from Karim Rashid’s beauty motto — can handle pandemic-like crisis?
In today’s world the amount, quality, and widespread of technology is undeniable. We have the tools to turn the world into a better place, we must not look to the other side and act as if we would not. The pandemic is asking for the essential version of humankind, this means life with the essential and without the non-essential actions and objects. One good example is the luxury market, which is suffering economics losses.
To be clear…
People and institutions won’t be able to be back to normal after the health crisis. The primary reason for that is the coronavirus, because it won’t disappear as fast as it appeared. We will have to learn to live with covid-19 the same way we live with any other flu. Institutions in general cannot just ignore the effects of the pandemic and resume business as usual. If they do, they will be ignoring the clever lessons of the situation. But note that it is impossible now to observe, define and explain those lessons since we are right in the middle of the crisis. Even after the worst we won’t be able to do so. It will take time, deep global and regional discussions, cross-sectorial evaluations (and else…) to assess the impact and learn the lessons from the covid-19 first strike. Business enterprises and political bodies should also take time to learn, and refrain themselves to react, reopen, and reactivate as soon as possible the old-normal.
This will be absurd.
