Early December Sudhir lectured at Banana Bandy Design Mela in Mumbai along with other eminent creative professionals – Satish Gokhale, Ritam Banerjee and Ayaz Basrai. He spoke about why and how designers should Be like a Bee. Sudhir believes that every designer should be an entrepreneur:
With every project, whether you are working on your own or working for somebody, – you need to figure out your own way every time.
It’s very common practice for designers to become entrepreneurs from day 1, – right from the moment design process goes into their mind. At the same time every entrepreneur is not a designer. Hence designer-entrepreneur networking would be one of the best things to happen. That’s why Sudhir’s message to designers is – Be like Bees. He explains why.
All the bees look same. Designers look same to clients and other people. Bees are never at one place, they never sit. That’s how designers should be – curious, moving, buzzing around.
Bees’ purpose is to reach honey – similarly we are there to make lives better, so its very important not to loose the track of where “honey” lies.
Yet designers need to accept insecurities – bees are small, anyone can easily squash them but they have a sting. They can sting you, and that makes you scared. Designers’ sting is the skills they have, they need to keep them sharp.
Bees are always noticed in group – designer alone is part of larger group. But it’s not possible to survive alone – you need to live in an ecosystem and exist as a group together, – just like bees do.
At the end of the session Sudhir have shared the tips of How to Be like a Bee:
Sting – Maintain your Sting – you need to keep your skills sharp.
Size – Remember you are the small part of large world, be humble.
Hive – We have to live in hive – support, work together, learn to team with other designers.
Buzz – Make noise, don’t sit in one place, travel, write, ideate, sketch.
Honey – Don’t loose the sight of the ‘honey’, – do something meaningful to the society you live in.