Superstar SWISH

Being Malaysia’s first international fan design collaboration, NSB has joined hands with world renowned design maven, Karim Rashid to bring Malaysia its first ever designer ceiling fan – NSB Superstar Series SWISH.

Revolutionary, unparalleled and outstanding – NSB recently unveiled the brand new, first ever Malaysian designer fan. In collaboration with internationally known designer, Karim Rashid, NSB proudly presented SWISH from the NSB Superstar Series at HOMEDEC.

As the market leader in the fan and lighting industry for over a decade, NSB is also a pioneer in marketing designer fan products since 2011, and with new opportunity – new partnerships, design, innovation and exceptional creativity arises. Such collaboration with Karim Rashid is an exciting step for NSB, meaning it gives this Malaysian brand the chance to spread its wings globally.

Well known for his eccentric and sensual minimalist concepts, Karim Rashid’s designed are distinctive. His signature style is certainly reflected in the SWISH fan, where the soft curves and fluid lines create an iconic and spectacular piece.

Only unveiling the prototype of the SWISH at HOMEDEC, the SWISH is one of six designer fans that Karim Rashid had designed for NSB. The completed SWISH is expected to be launched in Malaysia at the beginning of 2016, where the rest of the exclusive designs will be made available over the next few years. With a chance to speak to NSB Founder, Mr Jo Hooi, we at Creative Home got more on the collaboration between NSB and Karim Rashid.

Creative Home: How did the collaboration with Karim Rashid begin?

Jo Hooi: It actually began through Iko In (Founder of Creative Home Magazine), he introduced me to Karim Rashid and so from there, we at NSB had the idea of collaborating with an international designer as it gives us the chance to go global with our products. We want to expand from just Malaysia.

CH: How can Karim Rashid help you go global?

JH: As Karim is an international designer, he is internationally well known. People know him for his unique product design and his designs can help us build our reputation as well as going global with the designs and products.

CH: Karim Rashid has a very eccentric and peculiar style – how do you think the Malaysian market will receive his designs?

JH: I think they will like it very much. All his designs are very unique and he really understands the local interior designs which is definitely helpful.

CH: Karim has designed six different fans for NSB – can you share some details about the designs?

JH: His designs are simple – simple for a fan, but difficult to manufacture. It took us almost two years to come up with the SWISH prototype, which we completed about only a couple of months ago. The thing about fans is that it is really simple to assemble – you need a motor, housing, a blade and that’s pretty much it. All a fan is designed to do is produce wind, if it does that – it is a fan. To make a standard new fan, it would only take a few days – as the accessories are already existing market.

CH: And what about with Karim Rashid’s designs – the SWISH?

JH: What we did with Karim was come up with an entirely new fan and design – which was a very tedious process. It certainly took a lot of time and effort. His designs are slightly different from conventional fan designs as his fan is attached to the motor itself, meaning whenever we had to make changes, we had to create the whole thing again. The good thing is that we learnt new things by making all these minor adjustments each time. For an example, with the pitch and the steepness of the fan – we had to play around with these factors so that we could achieve a comfortable and quiet wind. Sometime the fan would produce a very high decibel so when you switched on the fan at a high speed you hear the ‘whooshing’ sound. It was a trial and error process for this fan – we wanted to get a powerful and comfortable wind with very low noise pollution.

CH: The design of SWISH is very different from your normal fan, in that it doesn’t have 2, 3 or 5 blades. How effective is his design for a fan?

JH: This is the first time we are doing this type of fan. To our surprise, it was actually very effective – the wind can reach up to 11 feet. The normal wind direction of a fan pushes the wind downwards and outwards, so when you stand further away, you can’t feel the wind much as it’s at your feet. With the SWISH, you can surprisingly feel the wind at waist height, even standing at 11 feet away. The coverage area of the wind was certainly a surprise for us.

CH: Currently, the SWISH fan is only available in Malaysia – have you introduced SWISH to an international market?

JH: We are currently looking for business partners overseas. We haven’t come up with the pricing of this fan yet as the prototype was only recently made. We need to still finalise everything, like do the last few small changes, find out the product costs etc… but we do have interested wholesalers overseas. They have seen the fan and are keen, so we just need to figure out the price once we have completed SWISH.

CH: When will the other Karim Rashid designed fans be ready?

JH: Once we get the SWISH completed, I think the other five fans will be quick. We will know how to go about making the fans, so it will be a faster process.

CH: What do you like about the Karim Rashid’s designs?

JH: All of his designs are very curvy, they aren’t edgy. The curves are beautiful and I think they will blend very well with all interiors.

CH: What are the other features of SWISH?

JH: It is a DC motor fan. Compared to traditional fans, it consumes very little energy – from our results so far on what we have tested, it can take 43 Watts at maximum speed, and we are currently trying to further reduce the power consumption and take it down to about 20 Watts.

CH: Can you tell us more about what we should expect to see from NSB in the future?

JH: Well this collaboration with Karim Rashid will be carried out over the next 4 to 5 years – so I guess over that time you will see us release more his designs. We are going to focus primarily on this, other than that, just see how the market is doing and bounce off that.

NSB LIGHTING SDN BHD

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Taman Mas Sepang,

47100 Puchong, Selangor

T: 03 8068 3181

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NSB HOME APPLIANCES SDN BHD

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47100 Puchong, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Selangor.

T: +603 8060 2524

F: +603 8060 2851