Weekly report for 21st October – 28th October

 

We decided that I am going to focus all my energies on making a fine series of short animated films that explain not only Aura, but the importance of avoiding chemical dyes, the harms they accost the earth, and the nitty-gritty of the synthetic processes that might liberate customers to make better choices for themselves.

Three movies (or three parts of the same movie) were decided upon.

1.     The first would involve explaining to the customers the general and most common way of producing clothes. (Currently, this is the movie I'm working on. The speech-text for this is under way)


2.     The second movie would involve explaining how all the factory processes of Aura differ from normal factory processes.


3.     The third and final movie would explain the connection between our products and our most faithful customers; why they’ve stuck around and what it means to wear naturally dyed clothes.

Conditions:



1. Make something about as cute and as informative as this, for the simple reason that cute has the power to rope in as many customers as possible, while informative is something that people will always be grateful to have. 
Probably a more hard-hitting video than this example is fine, too, since the kind of content we're going for is far darker and needs to be compelling.

2.  Get no scientific facts wrong (ie do enough scientific background research to be able to make it cute enough for people)
3. Be short, quick, cite sources and create a cult followiing-like possibility for Aura.



Events of this week:

1.     Meeting with the Fairtrade inspectors
2.     Photographing of all of the factory processes
3.     Reading and making acquaintance with the current “sustainability” market in textiles through the Sustainability Manual, especially Aura’s competitors and copycats.
4.     Investigation begun about each of the 10 processes of dyeing: yarn-collecting, weaving, washing, scouring, bleaching, pretreatment, dyeing, rewashing and finishing.
5.     An almost-final text on the first movie written and in the process of co-editing with team.

The Aura Showroom + progress with my projects

Aura, as of last week, features VERY EXCITINGLY on google maps like this.

 The shot is form the showroom, located in Vastrapur, Ahmedabad.

This is their card on recycled paper.

This is the view from my intern's corner in the inner office of the shop.

That's me, standing inside the boutique with some of its lovely inhabitants.

A secret passageway in the boutique, full of lovely exciting things like paper flowers and scraps of cloth.
Inset: Neha, the receptionist of the boutique.

One more shot of the lovely paper flowers.

The clothes saying hello to the street outside.

The street saying hello backkk.

Note the elephant.

Reflections on my week at Aura:

As time goes by and my little tasks at the office increase (editing the text on the brochure, working on the mood board, sketching a 3d perspective view of the upcoming office), my designated tasks at Aura Herbal Wear become clearer to me.

I'm asked to think of innovate ways to market the produce of Aura - a company that has been running for 10 years and still is not receiving the relevant love and credit from audiences it deserves.

One of my most major tasks would be to design Aura a set of animated movies that could double up as ads and serve as a means of viral advertisement.

How to make young people engage with Aura?

How to make the transparency of Aura processes (cradle to cradle, 100% sustainable peripheral processes, such as the recycling of water), the absolute uniqueness of the product it offers, something indispensable to more people, and more clients?

How to make Aura something of a cult following?

When I was thinking of these questions, one of the greatest and surprising examples that came to my mind was the Kony 2012 campaign. It was, of course, in my opinion, a complete fraud, but its marketing tactic was unbelievably bang-on. What, then, if deconstructed, would we possibly figure out some especially useful tactics that could also be used in order to promote something good?
#thoughtsontacticalmedia

While explaining the Kony 2012 disaster (ie how the campaign actually increased the number of children Kony's army captured by nearly ten times as much) to my employers, Arun said something strange. He said "Oh so they sold a kit? I have a kit too!"

And so we arrived at another of my 'tasks': the Aura herbal wear viral advertising method would be a kit that enables the users to use herbal paints for themselves. So that takes care of the viral object. And it becomes my job to make the cost price of the tie and dye kit as little as possible, as well as to promote it through the little videos I make.

Coming up: A time-based task breakdown of all my tasks for Aura up ahead


(From now on, I am going to write a weekly reflection every Saturday + a list of tasks for the benefit of my employees and for documentation's sake.)

Day 1 in office

My first morning at work began with a ride to work with my very bosses in their own car.
Isn't that an awful way to treat an intern?

In the car we discussed most of the work I could do.

The car ride

 We brainstormed a number of ideas:

1. Aura needs a short film or advert, something that can be circulated and something that will explain the natural dying processes that take place within factory walls. This can also serve as a pitch to younger audiences.
Now, I'm not quite the film maker or camera woman, and I believe that nothing short of an extremely well-directed short film can communicate the message of Aura. So I proposed to make a series of short animations overlaid on some footage to explain different aspects of Aura that also "young"ly communicate the message.

2. Aura needs some form of viral/ tactile advertisement. One of the ideas Sonal and Arun had was to keep a camel-drawn lorry (they are not an uncommon sight on Ahmedabad roads) that dyes bits of cloth and passes them about to the public at the small signals.

3. 50-odd t-shirt prints

4. 50-odd innovative scarf ideas

5.  One event/ workshop/ store idea for the Mumbai weekend Farmer's Market (?) during Christmas time.

Boss #1

Boss#2

other members of the factory

trade secrets here

Boss #3

Aura Herbal Wear is a company that makes naturally dyed garments and cloth.
To understand what "naturally" means, one has to realise that it is not only eco-friendly, not only organic, but also that the entire process of dying, from the cotton used (which of course is organic), but also the picking herbs to dye colours (yes! they use herbs to dye the colours!) to the factory processes by which it is dyed, to the way in which the copious amounts of waste water is recycled ( the extent that it is probably better filtered than ground water itself). So as you can see, the process is entirely natural, eco-friendly, and beneficial to all in vicinity.

Aura: A friendlier way to dye

Some more T-shirt/ merchandise designs

T-shirt design #1

Joining the bandwagon

I asked Sonal what kind of work I could do for Aura.

Having known me quite a bit all my life, she said that it is in need of some serious marketing and advertisements. As of 2012, Aura had been holding youth awareness workshops on dyeing. It is in need more of awareness campaigns delegating the message of Aura far and wide in Ahmedabad with a personal touch.
What they wanted me to do, knowing my skill set, was to help advertise it. This was lucky, because for the two years of professional diploma training in Srishti, if there is one thing that has caught my attention, it is mixed media, tactile and guerrilla marketing. So this is what I am going to set out to do for them.