Hello.

WHO: I’m Rahim and I’m a designer. I’m originally from Toronto, Canada. My undergraduate degree in Industrial Design and Business led me to pursue my MBA in Design Strategy in San Francisco, California. **After spending 6 years in San Francisco, I decided to move back to my hometown of Toronto. **

WHY: I’ve always been curious about the objects around me and my parents noticed this when I was very young. From that point forward, video games and television became rare commodities in our house, as they opted to give me lego instead, knowing it would fuel my creativity and desire to build. As I grew older and my creative tendencies grew even stronger, I graduated from my childhood lego set to Carleton University's Industrial Design program, and ultimately to an MBA in Design Strategy from the California College of the Arts.

BACKGROUND: My education and work experience have taught me to approach everything from an interdisciplinary standpoint. I rely on my business training, knowledge of design, and creativity to find innovative solutions to complex problems. During the span of my career, I have worked for great Canadian industrial design firms like Umbra, Arctic Zone/California Innovation and Teknion. One of my greatest accomplishments as a thriving young designer has been finishing as a top 20 international finalist in the 2010 James Dyson Competition for my project UVSP - Ultraviolet Sports Pack. I was grateful to have this achievement featured on various publications and television programs, including the Discovery Channel's flagship science program, Daily Planet with host Jay Ingram. Shortly after in 2012, I was granted the opportunity to deliver a keynote speech on my innovations in the Design Indaba conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

EXPERIENCE: I have also had the opportunity to work at Yves Behar's fuseproject as a design strategy intern in addition to freelancing for various start ups. Upon graduating from my MBA program in Design Strategy in 2013, I worked for Samsung USA as part of their Product Innovation Team in the mobile division, researching, conceptualizing and designing the future of mobile/wearable products. My work there brought me to a Finnish based design consultancy called Ixonos, where I worked as a Design Strategist/UX Designer. In 2015, I joined the design agency Code and Theory in San Francisco as a Senior Design Strategist. Code and Theory was ranked top 10 most innovative firms in Design by Fast Company in 2015.

Near the end of 2017 I decided to move back to my hometown of Toronto, Canada and couldn't be happier with my decision. Thank you to the Bay Area, I am grateful for the expeirence and all the learnings.

Currently I'm a Senior UX Researcher at Sirion and lead their UX Research divison and teach UX Design/Research at York University.

PASSION: My latest personal design venture began in 2014, when 'Arabesque', my line of Islamic design inspired coasters, was selected as a front line product for the Aga Khan Museum’s gift shop. The museum is in Toronto, Canada and is one of the first museums to showcase the artistic, intellectual and scientific contributions of Islamic civilizations to North America.

Lastly, I'm a versatile T-shaped designer focused in design research, strategy, and User Experience design with past experiences in Industrial design. I am tech driven, love to learn and driven by ambiguity.

I am always open to hearing about new opportunities.

(Please note this website has not been updated since 2017, please email me to request my latest body of work)

Thanks for visiting!

-Rahim