karim rashid was born in cairo, egypt in 1960; half english, half egyptian and raised mostly in canada. he received a bachelor of industrial design in 1982 from carleton university in ottawa, canada, . he pursued graduate design studies in naples, italy, with ettore sottsass and others, then moved to milan for one year at the rodolfo bonetto studio. on his return to canada, he worked for seven years with kan industrial designers. while at kan, he also co-founded and designed the babel fashion collection and north from 1985-91. he opened his own practice in new york city in 1993. he has worked for numerous clients globally such as prada, giorgio armani, foscarini, guzzini, zanotta, estee lauder, issey miyake and during the years he won numerous awards like the good design award (2003) for the kurve chair for neinkamper and the i.d. magazine’s annual design review (2002). he has over 70 objects in permanent collections and his design work has been exhibited in many art museums in the usa (museum of modern art, new york, chicago athenaeum, chicago; miami museum of contemporary art), in europa (british design museum, london,uk; groningen museum, groningen, holland) and in the rest of the world (tokyo gas, tokyo, japan). he has been a juror for several international competitions and a contributing writer for design periodicals. he was a full-time associate professor in industrial design for 10 years at the university of the arts in philadelphia, pratt institute, rhode island school of design, and the ontario college of art and lectures internationally. karim has released two books, ‘i want to change the world’ on rizzoli universe, 2001, and the international design yearbook 18, for laurence king publishing, uk as well as having curated two cds on seattle boutique label, neverstop. currently, karim is working on his second book for rizzoli universe, titled evolution.

mario mazzer

mario mazzer was born in 1955. he graduated in architecture from the politecnico di milano in 1978 and qualified as an industrial designer in 1979 at the scuola politecnica di design in milan. he worked in milan with leading figures in italian design throughout the '70s, setting up his own firm in the '80s. he works in various fields: architecture, interior design and industrial design. his participation in numerous conferences and the displays of his work in museums and design exhibitions have contributed to the cultural dialogue on design. he received special mentions at the young & design competition in 1988 and 1989, and won the competition in 1991. he received an honourable mention from the american journal id annual design review, in 1996. his products have been included in the adi design index and in the international design yearbook. in 2001 he published a monograph entitled thinking about things: mario mazzer designer. he works in collaboration with numerous top industrial-design firms.

 ron arad

 was born in tel aviv, in 1951. ron arad participated in the foundation of the design and production office one off in 1981 and some years later, in 1989, together with caroline thorman, founded the architecture and design office ron arad associates. ron arad is now design teacher at royal college of art in london and collaborates with many leader firms: among them: alessi, bonaldo, cassina, cappellini, fiam, kartell, moroso, vitra. his architecture designs range from oper of tel aviv in israel, to the restaurants belgo in london, to adidas spor cafè in toulon , to a private residence in london, to the new technology hall by selfridges in london,to grand hotel salone in milan, till to various expositions such as “winning: the design of sports (glasgow 1999) and “ron arad – before and after now” by v&a. ron arad’s products are exposed in several museums and galleries all over the world and many of them have been included in public collections.