Salman Raheel

Bio

Salman Raheel is a designer whose creative path led him through industrial design and global manufacturing before dedicating himself to making objects by hand. The heart of his interests has to do with the principle of Beauty, and with creativity in the way we live in this world.

Having earned his MFA in Industrial Design (1996), under his Graduate Advisor David Coleridge Ryan at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he relocated to Italy in 1997. Settling in Tuscany, he met Ing. Carlo Doveri, a collegue of Corradino D’Ascanio – inventor of the Vespa scooter. He joined Carlo Doveri’s engineering team at EDI Progetti, developing scooter and motorcycle prototypes for clients worldwide including Piaggio, Aprilia, Greaves Vehicles Ltd. (now PGVL), BMW, Peugeot and Kymco.

In 2004, he joined Plastwood Srl, Sardinia, where he restructured and headed creative direction as Head of Design and Development, remaining with the toy company for three years developing new product lines and helping bridge the company’s move to global manufacturing for international markets.

Since 2011, he has worked across multiple disciplines on Haiku Sarti, an artistic-sartorial collaborative centered around clothing, music, and the visual arts.

In 2018 he joined the Faculty of the Industrial Design program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.