Bodonation

I found the ppt presentation I did a while back in Mumbai to a hall of designers.

In which I threw in some self-reflecting numbers:

For the year 1994-2000 I logged in:
    Annual reports: 100+
    Newsletters & corporate brochures: 400+
    Books/Corporate profiles: 60+
    Awards: 0+ (There were one or two merits somewhere)

And the awfully depressing part:
    Designers whom I’m in contact with (besides staff and ex-staff): 0
    Design lectures/talks/seminars attended: 1
    Number of days taken for holidays: 0
    Number of working hours per day: 16+
    Number of overnights spent in studio: ?

During that period I really wanted to know what other designers are doing (or thinking), and secretly wished that they could/would share some of their experiences with me, so that an ignorant young fart like me could learn and improve myself.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

I couldn’t possibly pick up my phone and call another designer and start a conversation that goes like this:

"Hello Nelson, you don’t know me but I would really like to know what you are doing. I really like your works and would like to know you in person. Oh, by the way, I happened to run a design studio, and yea, we are pitching for the same jobs."

For a while these people belonged to the elusive list of "designers I would like to meet but I just don’t know when". It was a long list of designers who were producing respectable works in our little design industry.

The local design events (if there were any) were always organised by a certain paper company on a "by invitation" basis. I was never a "VIP customer" since my clients could never allocate me the budget to splurge on nice papers.

I was always hiding behind my cubicle.

That was then.

6 years down the road and about 2 hours ago I asked my wife:

"Have I made a difference in the creative industry?"

How&why is 6 years old. My two fantastic colleagues (Eh, JL and SK, if you two are reading this, I really mean fantastic without my trademarked sarcasm) were joking about doing a 7 year anniversary next year. Why 7? "Because we just want to find a reason to celebrate something".

I guess on a personal level I have accomplished my mission of getting to know all the people on the list. Above that, I have managed to persuade most of them to step out in public, to share their knowledge and experiences with the people who cared to know. It brings me even more joy to see well-established people sacrificing their precious time with students - they are not obligated to, but have done so on numerous occasions.

"Have I made a difference in the creative industry?"

I would want to think so. That’s such a lovely self-appeasing and self-congratulatory thought.

But the truth is, the past 6 years had been a difficult journey.

It has been energy sapping, mentally draining and definitely not financially rewarding. Sometimes I wonder whether I have lost my sanity and toiled in vain.

Sometimes I just want to drop all these and be a designer, again.

Maybe I would.

(in a reflective mood today)

This entry was posted on Monday, June 19th, 2006 at 10:03 am and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.