Who

One of the most famous—and least humble—designers working today, Rashid has applied his touch to thousands of products and dozens of spaces over the course of his career.

Backstory

The son of an Egyptian father and English mother, Rashid was born in Cairo and raised in Canada. After picking up an industrial design degree in his native Ottawa, he moved to Milan for several years, later moving to the States when he landed a teaching job at the Rhode Island School of Design. He was fired just 18 months later, but that didn't dampen his ambitions. In 1992 he packed his things and made his way to New York, where he slept on his brother's couch, taught part time at Pratt, and began pitching companies on his product design concepts. The early days weren't easy going—Rashid says he had 100 doors slammed in his face during his first few years. But in 1996 he hit pay dirt with the Garbo, a wastebasket made of colorful translucent plastic that he created for the housewares firm Umbra. Millions of units flew off the shelves—it ended up in the Brooklyn Museum of Art's permanent collection—and Rashid was off and running. He's now one of very few brand-name industrial designers in America thanks to his signature look—brightly-colored, amorphously-shaped everyday objects that usually sell at moderate price points.

Of note

The ever-ambitious Rashid has tackled just about every category under the sun over the past decade. He designed a vacuum cleaner for Dirt Devil, a perfume bottle for Tommy Hilfiger, furniture for Edra, salt and pepper shakers for Nambe, packaging for Prada, door handles for Martinelli—even a manhole cover for Con Edison. He's dabbled in apartment design (for Donald Trump) and crafted the looks of restaurants (Morimoto in Philadelphia) and hotels (the Semiramis Hotel in Athens), and he's lent his sensibility to clothing, designing a line for Lacoste and men's and women's bathing suits for Arena. Most recently, he's been at work designing an outpost of MyHotel in Brighton, England.

But it's not just Rashid's designs that made his reputation. He also happens to be one of the industry's most skillful self-promoters, as evidenced by his modestly-titled books: Karim Rashid: I Want to Change the World and Design Your Self—Rethinking the Way You Work, Live, Love and Play. The designer has made the requisite foray into reality TV, too—he starred in the short-lived USA Network inventor reality show, Made in the USA.

In person

Rashid is hard to miss thanks to his height (he's 6'4), signature eyewear, tattoos, and over-the-top outfits (he often wears all-white). If you should see him out and about and he appears especially nervous, pay no mind: he says he suffers panic attacks and depression stemming from the realization that he's managed to achieve every ounce of the success he aspired to.

Personal

Rashid was formerly married to digital designer Megan Lang. The couple divorced last year, and Rashid has since tied-the-knot with Ivana Puric. The couple lives in a loft above the Karim Rashid Design Studio on West 17th Street, and spend weekends at a house in Croton-on-Hudson that they purchased in 2001. His brother, Hani Rashid, is an architect in SoHo.