Brackish - S6 E14: Emmi Salonen & What I learnt from getting in cold water everyday for a month

Brackish (formerly Making Design Circular with Katie Treggiden)

In this episode, Katie speaks with Emmi Salonen, a Finnish graphic designer, creative director and educator, about creative wellbeing, burnout recovery, and how nature, travel and making connect us back to purpose.

Emmi is the founder of London-based Studio Emmi, known for championing Positive Creativity – the belief that design can foster wellbeing, connection, and sustainable choices. In this conversation, she shares the story behind her new book The Creative Wellbeing Handbook, how burnout changed her approach to creativity, and why building a creative ecosystem might be your most important project yet.

“Your creativity doesn’t exist in a silo – it’s interdependent, like everything in nature.” - Emmi Salonen

In this conversation, Kerry shares her personal and professional journey, from working in egg mayonnaise factories and funding bid writing to co-founding a business with her sisters and how all of it led to the creation of work that is rooted in community, joy and transformation.

What unfolds is a rich, honest and deeply human exploration of how we keep going when things feel hard, why creativity is a powerful force in social justice, and how we build structures that truly support wellbeing, not just perform it.

We cover:

- Emmi’s journey from burnout to building a model for creative wellbeing

- How solo travel sparked her first creative idea after a long pause

- The power of making, nature, and deep observation

- What creatives can learn from traditional craft cultures

- The five areas of Emmi’s “Creative Ecosystem” model – and how they map to the design process

- Why presence, rest and joy are creative tools too

- The book-writing process and gathering 100+ creative voices from around the world

This episode is a gentle yet powerful invitation to rethink what it means to live and work creatively — especially when the spark feels far away.

Through Emmi’s story of burnout, recovery, and deep solo travel, we’re reminded that creative energy isn’t something we force — it’s something we nourish. From volcanic landscapes to hand-carved bus stops, her journey weaves together beauty, slowness and connection as tools for coming back to ourselves.

Whether you’re in a creative rut, craving spaciousness, or simply curious about building a more sustainable relationship with your work, this conversation is a quiet balm — full of warmth, wisdom and the kind of insight that lingers long after listening.

More from Kerry:

Studio Website: www.emmi.co.uk

Book site: www.creativewellbeingbook.com

Follow Emmi: @studioemmi on Instagram and LinkedIn

Pre-Order Emmi’s book: The Creative Wellbeing Handbook – out November 12

“Fundamentally, you are already enough. This book isn’t another to-do list – it’s an invitation to breathe in.” - Emmi Salonen

More from Katie:

Instagram: @katietreggiden.1

Website: https://katietreggiden.com/

Nature-inspired poetry: https://brackishbykatietreggiden.substack.com/t/poetry

Resources mentioned:

Course: Sustainable Branding via Domestika

Online Course: The Science of Well-Being by Yale University

Check out my full Bookshop.org podcast reading list to find links to all the books mentioned throughout Season 6 of Brackish.

What next?

If all this talk of defiant hope has got you wondering where you can find some, I have something for you. Cultivating Hope is my three-part mini-course and it’s the three steps I move through whenever I start to feel despair tugging at my edges.

You will move out of ‘fight, flight or freeze’ mode and into a calm and connected state, reconnect with nature, and find aligned actions that you can take now to keep you to remind you that you can make a difference.

In the current climate, hope is an act of defiance, and it’s one I hope you’ll take with me.

Click here to find out more here

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