Good looks helped RKS Guitars make the cover of BusinessWeek last summer, when the Oxnard, Calif., company's futuristic, lime-green guitar was showcased in the magazine's annual design issue.

Whether the guitar will ever make the cover of Rolling Stone — or at least find a niche in the fast-growing electric guitar market — is another story.

Nearly all of rock's famed six-string slingers play models made by Fender Musical Instruments Corp. or Gibson Musical Instruments, making these guitars the dominant choices for players who can afford $1,000 and up for a premium ax.

The odds of cracking this stranglehold?

"Every year there are a bunch of guys who try," said Ken Daniels, owner of Truetone Music in Santa Monica, Calif., which specializes in high-end guitars. "And every year most of them drop like flies."

Ravi K. Sawhney said he wasn't thinking about the long odds when he decided to get into the guitar business — he was simply excited about the chance to break the mold.

The prominent product designer's RKS Design in Thousand Oaks, Calif., has created the look of photo printers for Hewlett Packard Co., cell phones for Nokia and vacuum cleaners for Sears, Roebuck and Co.'s Kenmore brand.

About five years ago, one of his designers started working up a new pattern for an electric guitar. Sawhney was taking guitar lessons at the time and decided to green-light the project.

"I can't say we sat down and studied and analyzed the failures of the past," said Sawhney, 49.

Rocker Dave Mason (Traffic), whom Sawhney met through mutual acquaintances, came on board early on to help with the design and tone. More recently, software entrepreneur Dale Jensen, the majority owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and a rock 'n' roll enthusiast, provided additional funding.

Last year, the company opened a factory in North Carolina and shipped 300 guitars, Sawhney said. But he was making continuing changes in the design, and wanted the plant closer to his design studio. In June, RKS opened the Oxnard factory, getting a boost soon thereafter from the BusinessWeek cover.

The guitar was the second-place winner in the Disruptive Design category, with the judges pointing to the instrument's unusual "open architecture" look, in which the electric pickups appear to float in the middle of a high-tech body.

Despite the acclaim, however, RKS is in its infancy. Its 15-worker factory turns out just eight guitars a day, and RKS has sold only 27 instruments. The instruments retail for $2,200 and up.

In addition to the innovative design, Sawhney thinks his fledgling company has several factors in his favor.

One is a surge in sales of electric guitars. Although most of the growth has been in cheaper imports from China selling for less than $150, the premium market is also booming — sales of models retailing for $1,000 and up rose 27.5 percent last year, according to Music Trades magazine.

That's partly from baby boomers who now have the means to buy instruments they've wanted since high school. Many of these players have Fenders and Gibsons, giving RKS — at least in theory — a shot at those looking for something new and different.

"A golfer might have one set of clubs, a person into fishing might have a couple different rods," said Paul Majeski, publisher of Music Trades. "But you never find a serious guitar player with just one or two guitars. They have a trading-card mentality.

"RKS already has something going," he said. "They are already ahead of where most companies are at this point. The odds are not insurmountable."

But they are daunting.

Fender has $380 million in annual sales (for guitars, amplifiers and related equipment) and Gibson has $210 million, Music Trades estimates. From there, it's a wide chasm to the next company that specializes in electric guitars — Paul Reed Smith, or PRS, Guitars, with $28.1 million in sales.

Fender, with its famed Stratocaster and Telecaster guitars, and Gibson — best known for its Les Paul line — have largely defined the electric guitar sound in rock and pop.

Paul Ash, president of the Sam Ash Music Corp. retail chain, thinks RKS may have a shot if it can get rising stars to play its products. "You have to make it a point to visit clubs," said Ash, whose father founded the company. "Show the guitar to musicians, let them handle them, try them for a few days."

Sawhney said the company would soon hire a talent scout to push the products to up-and-coming musicians. So far, they have been adopted by two young bands: Hanna McEuen, the country duo that recently played "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," and the touring metal group Greyscale.

RKS also is planning to spend $100,000 to promote its wares Jan. 19-22 in Anaheim, Calif., during the NAMM (formerly the National Association of Music Merchants) trade show, an annual event for musicians who want to see the latest instruments.

"It's our coming-out party," Sawhney said.