I have read the review of karim rashid’s Copco line, but I’m wondering if anyone has used these items first hand and what their impressions are?
Simply Crapco…
hey up north
maybe you could post the link to the review, if possible.
here’s one by Tony Whitfield
interesting read. thanks for link.
Thats the only one I have read…I’m wondering if anyone has purchaced or used the products yet. I have used a few of the barware items with joy. The price point, quality, materials and colors are great in my opinion.
I do not want to bash Karim or Copco but most of the designs look like another example of form over function. They just seem to be all style no substance. Why cant we get away from 90’s ascetic and start producing products that are actual innovative in function?
They are not even innovative in form, they are all very familiar looking. For example, the “Smoothe” thermous looks a lot like the Yeves Behar packaging for Phylou.
Dear Yo
I think you have to remember that with consumer products, especially things that have been designed a million times, things that people already own 4 of, then form becomes the function. I do admit that some the copco stuff is stretching a little far, but I quite like it - it’s fun, and in a party situation, i think would add to the vibe of the occasion. Lots of barware is very traditional, full off historical references that are just not relevant to me at least.
so i say Bravo Copco for having the nuts to try something different!
different is, as everyone does.
glib, naught
I don’t know if you work in a consultancy, (I used to), but it is so rare that a client would actually want to do anything different, normally they want what their competion has, only in a different color…
If you look at copco website - these Rashid products are So different from the complete nonsense they normally to do, so I say…
Viva la difference!
xyzzy
I work in a consultancy and I do agree with your comments about clients. However Rashid had the chance to do almost anything and he did what I can only describe as bad dollar store Ales rip-offs.
I’m not sure what you all mean by Copco trying something different… Copco has a legacy for innovative design. “Design” is even in their slogan. Where do you think OXO came from??
I think YO is right, this stuff all looks like knockoffs of better designers. Judge for yourself:
= Marc Newson:
= Yves Behar:
aww come’on dude - Yves and Rashid are cut from the same cloth - their forms are similar becuase their thinking is similar, Fuse project just might be a little more “subtle” in their approach!
We are of course judging the rashid products with out knowing what Copco’c brief to Rashid was - you say he could do anything. but maybe Copce gave him the newson opener and the pilou bottle and said we wnat this but different and at $15 not $50 (or what ever that operner cost)
Also
http://www.copco.com/store/site/department.cfm?dc=tk&killnav=1
Did ya LOOK at the copco website, yikes!
I’m not likely to buy anything from them, especially their OXO ripoff kettle
Good point, But has anyone else physically tried the items. Thats the real test.
I also used to work for a consultancy, a few actually, but thanks for the overly didactic comments… You are right, most clients want a small evolution of what is allready out there, and it looks like this brief was no different, there is nothing new here, and that makes it very un-FUN looking to my eyes. Viva la NEW kiddo.
[quote=“xyzzy”
I think you have to remember that with consumer products, especially things that have been designed a million times[/quote]
Esp. if you make no effort to innovate anything new for the consumer, I’ve never seen a Rashid product that does, though I own several of his designs (oh chair, garbo can, some of the nambe stuff) Rashid was so much better when he had done little before, now its just PLAYED OUT, so much so I had to cap it. The revolution is dead in that studio. What would blow me away is if he turned it and did a bunch of syd mead looking stuff. I mean hed did change to white for the new milenium, I gues by wanting to change the world he meant into Hanes T-shirts. 
Behar is not from the same cloth, though they both might be denim…
yo - I think you have a point about Rashid being played out - I also feel he has failed to “evolve” as a designer - do you think we judge him more harshly than other designers because of his "bombastic: nature
I mean if you life by the sword , you may as well die by the sword!? right?
That’s funny, but I think you are onto something there.
When you proport to have such high standards and ideals, you can’t be surprised when people hold you to them.
Quite common for people that become well known for something to have touble evolving it. Look at Pollack. As soon as he found something no one else had done before, he did it for the rest of his life, never bringing the new ever again. it becomes boring, predictable, dry. You become the thing you rebelled against.
The catch 22 is that clients come to you for a specific thing. They don’t wan’t new from you, they want bloopy splines revolved in space.
I think that decribes the situation better than any of the other posts. I don’t see why Rashid can’t figure out a new way of playing with the revolve and loft tools, though. I guess it’s of special importance to me since he graduated from my program…
Though I understand (this is third-hand knowledge) that he didn’t get on well with the professors for precisely the reasons his designs today are criticized: too much art and style, wtith basically no concentration on actual innovation or human factors beyond “curvy>square”.
yeah - it like he decided to be an artist masquerading as an industrial designer
But again I feel that OK - thats his deal, I can take it or leave it - no one forces me to buy his products and to me that is the ultimate test—
Rashid is not even seen as a product designer to myself. He is more of a Graphic Designer that only sees the shape and not the user experience / function. And his shapes are ‘tired’ and ‘used’