19 July 2010

Karim Rashid takes on appliance design for Gorenje


Karim Rashid is a 50-year-old, Egyptian-born, Canadian-raised, Italian-educated force of nature. He's an industrial designer whose Manhattan design practice seems to touch every product category in existence. A year ago he designed a line of appliances for the Slovenian manufacturer Gorenje.

Gorenje isn't distributed in North America unfortunately, but looking over this collection is almost enough to make me want to import them myself.

Distinctive doesn't begin to describe the eye and hand of Mr. Rashid and I have to say that I've never felt the urge to describe an induction cooktop as ethereal until I saw this.


That same design is available in either induction or radiant electric. Amazing.

Here's his version of a wall oven.



That same wall oven is available in a variety of colors and what's interesting about them is that the color comes from LEDs hidden in the recessed handle.


Dear Gorenje, please enter the North American market. Please.

6 comments:

  1. *sigh*

    If only the American market was that open-minded.

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  2. Hey, what you see today is not necessarily what you’re going to see tomorrow. Gorenje is, as you pointed out, doing some wonderful things with their appliance designs. But in their hands these staid old products have become brand new. I have written a couple of blogs on them myself because I like what they’re doing. The cool thing about it, though, is that the world is most definitely shrinking. I’m in San Diego; you’re in Florida, I believe; and we’re commenting on products made in Europe. But more and more these days, these products are coming to the United States. My guess would be that we’re no more than two or three years away from Gorenje being introduced to the USA.

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  3. Tell me about it Raina.

    Joseph: They do make amazing-looking stuff, even beyond the Rashid series. I'm sure they'll end up on this side of the Atlantic eventually and I wonder how they'll survive the translation into American-style appliances.

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  4. WOW! I love the infusion of color but Americans tend to shy away from that.

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  5. Hi Paul, Gorenje are really popular here in Ireland. Michelle one of our designers was recently brought to Slovenia to have a look around their factory. Gorenje seem to own everything there and even owned the hotel she stayed in!
    They have some beautiful ranges, Pininfarina is a popular design here. The biggest issue they encountered here was getting the public to trust their brand when it wasn't well know. They solved this by giving a 5 year warranty on appliances. You should take a look at their new "SmarTable" it's a really cool table for bars, boardrooms etc.

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  6. A leader in innovative design!

    Mr Rashid, Canadian raised ..... that explains why he is a master at what he does. (Winks)
    -Brenda-

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Talk to me!