general thoughts

wolle seide bast

I am still thinking about the brochure.

Wool silk bast. Often used together in German with “Fraktion” (EN fraction): and often slightly deprecatingly, referring to folks doing things differently (to put it nicely), caring for a simpler life, using natural sustainable stuff , quite often put in a corner of naive world optimizers, idealists,… I think you get the idea: wearing T-shirts made with brown wool from the neighbor’s sheep although the shirts are scratchy like hell.

The very moment you mention hand made, artisanal, own creations, there is a looming danger of positioning yourself in this corner: You might wake up in the wicker basket of the wool silk bast fraction. Some like it, for some it is a no-go. Trust me: I wake up there from time to time and try to sneak out of this basket if I can.

If you come up with a packaging that is not ribbons and pictures and does not fit the the wool silk bast aesthetics, you might disappoint folks who associate hand made with ribbons and artisanal with zero-bling-bling- factor. That’s why, by the way, a lot of  “bigger” companies put ribbons around flacons, packaging, whatever, in order to wallow in this hand made pool.

And if you mention that you are doing things with an artistic approach, you wake up one day realizing that you are expected to wear strange hats and make a fuss about yourself because you are an artist and are expected to behave like one. Ever been to a vernissage where “art” was the smoke-screen to get drunk with with other creative people? Then you probably know what I mean.

You get the idea: Positioning yourself and your products is not easy.

Down to earth, that’s where I would position myself, to some extend. But how to bring this message across? I decided that I have to try to come up with a few its and bits of text and pictures that should bring this message across. Sort of.