Synopses & Reviews
From design icon Karim Rashid comes the ultimate guide to living your life by design principles in Design Your Self, a futuristic prescription for whole-being minimalism, sensualism, and functionalism, from the inside out. Design Your Self offers dozens of informative tips and vibrant illustrations in Rashid's trademark candy-color design all beautifully packaged with a plastic cover and four different cover versions: bright blue, green, pink, and orange.
Widely known as one of the world's most prolific consumer products designers, Karim Rashid has revolutionized the world of product and interior design. From Umbra wastebaskets to Issey Miyake perfume bottles, to the Semiramis hotel in Athens to the Morimoto restaurant in Philadelphia, modern, fluid, minimalist designs are the hallmarks of Rashid's work.
Now, in Design Your Self, Rashid brings his trademark hyper-functional design to the task of creating a better you. With a designer's practicality, vision, and creativity, Rashid offers a complete plan for a style and organizational overhaul, from your home to your diet, from beauty to travel, from your sex life to your commute.
Rashid's philosophies encourage quality over quantity, space over clutter, clarity over complexity, and a marriage of form and function in every design. Homes are to be large, open spaces that are transformable and reconfigurable, a space that allows objects and furniture to breathe. Colors are to be embraced at every opportunity, and should pop with the vibrant energy of our digital world. Furnishings should be multi-use and sensual, invoking comfort and feelings of love.
Encouraging readers to embrace the power of change, Rashidexplains how to improve all areas of life, from the home, to the office, to the self, and beyond. Design Your Self contains the whole-being guide to improving your body, to creating a look that is an innovative expression of individuality, to being a good friend, to being a great lover, to traveling light, to embracing information and education, and to creating a passionate life.
Design Your Self begins with a sensual, spiritual, functional perspective to re-designing your home. The mantra of your domestic landscape should be: Peace, Tranquility, Fluidity, and Inspiration, he writes. Your domestic environment should be characterized by positive energy, heightened experiences, and contemporary design. It should be arranged to provide the highest level of comfort and spiritual well being.
When you Design Your Self, you will:
Learn the three essential measures to dematerialize your space Use addition by subtraction, having more with less Adopt a sensual minimalism to styling your home Discover the five simple conditions to dreaming well Learn how to make a life that you love Design your favorite location for having good sex Learn to make Rashid's favorite fast, simple pasta dish Downsize your technology Understand why beauty is yours to give Dare to be different and embrace fashion that speaks your name Reconfigure your office desk to be neat, clean, and empty Discover Rashid's top fashion tips for women & men Get Rashid's must do calendars -- yearly, seasonally, monthly, weekly, and daily Shift your ideas about color, and learn to use it wherever and whenever you can
Design Your Self gives straightforward, foolproof, practical advice to design a better you.
Rashid's direct, whole-being advice is a must-read for anyone who dreams of designing their destinies, set to the tune of the techno-colored pulse of the future.
Synopsis
Celebrated industrial designer Karim Rashid explains how to optimize all areas of life, aesthetic and spiritual, in this colorful, beautifully designed book.
Design wonderkind Karim Rashid, whose projects range from the Trump Towers apartments to Lacoste sportswear to the ubiquitous Umbra garbage can, prescribes an organizational and style overhaul in Design Your Life. In short, sharp chapters, he tackles topics as diverse as the wardrobe, office space, love life, and diet, answering perplexing questions like how to properly pack a suitcase, use colors to accent a room, and carve out free time in a busy schedule. Whether the reader is looking to redesign his physical space or spiritual life, Design Your Life offers comprehensive guidance that is straightforward and easy to follow.
Rashid's philosophies center on quality over quantity, space over clutter, clarity over complexity, and a marriage of form and function in every design. With each page in vibrant color and packed with his charming artwork and sketches, Design Your Life is an ideal gift book–and the very embodiment of Rashid's functional style.
About the Author
Karim Rashid is an industrial designer whose clients include Prada, Nambe, Issey Miyake, Mikasa, Shiseido, Giorgio Armani, and Yahoo, among many others. With a career that began at age nineteen, Rashid is now the creator of more than two thousand designs, many of them award-winning. His commercial success has been mirrored by critical acclaim; his works are in the permanent collections of fourteen museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts. His designs are available at the Karim Rashid Shop at 137 West 19th Street in New York City.