What are your views on the future of design?

When we think of the Egyptian culture, the most amazing thing is how they managed to create this culture. This is one whole, a perfect piece of art – chairs of one type (but what type!), one type of graphics and architecture. Why? Because they lacked “designers” who lived at royal courts and passed their knowledge from generation to generation, and because they lacked “production capacities”. Now we have a chance to create thousands of such perfect cultures. Soon we will be able to produce a chair or a TV set especially for a specific interior. Already now we can do that, but it’s expensive, and both customers and designers prefer to buy ready-made products, after picking up right colors, as well as “styles.”So far such cultures are a very rare phenomenon, even though Karim Rashid alone is quite a cultural event.

Do you feel there is more emphasis on design now in comparison to the past? Why or why not?

Every time needs its watch. In the past they produced 27 chairs a year, and each of them carried a piece of the soul of the craftsman. Now millions of chairs are produced daily, which outwardly can be a lot more expressive, but obviously the machine cannot provide enough soul for one million chairs. That’s why design has huge importance. It’s the design that can give a “soul” to an object. An object that our grandchildren will not throw away and will not exchange for a more anatomical model.

Flashbag series

Your designs are very colourful, do you feel that is an important component?

If we are talking about Flashbag or Remobeads, then the pictures that you can see are the “description of a concept”. What is most important for a concept? To be noticed! As soon as it comes to mass production, new “conservative” colors and versions will definitely be developed especially for those strange people that still wear suits.

Color, as well as any other important aspect of design, carries an important function – it draws attention to an object which is supposed to draw attention, or leaves imperceptible what is rather be left unseen, or even, hah! makes a charged Flashbag look like a ripe orange!

Do you think future designs will be more innovative and artistic than current ones, or do you feel we have reached the peak of our abilities?

It depends a lot on specific people that create designs. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the future or in the past, whether there were hundreds of thousands of designers before you or you are the first. Today if we are not in the mother’s womb, then we have just been born (me for sure, at least), so there will always be mountains to be moved. When we get to the peak, all we have to do is to stand on our head and to go conquer a mountain of possibilities again.