Pick Me Up at Somerset House
London, UK

Studio EMMI and Chrissie Macdonald have designed the visual identity and collateral material for Pick Me Up at Somerset House last month. Pick Me Up is an annual graphic arts festival, celebrating contemporary graphic art, design and illustration. Now in its fourth year, Pick Me Up packed together exciting international talent from the wonderfully diverse field of graphic arts for an 11-day extravaganza of creative workshops, late-night art and music mash-ups, quirky family-fun events and interactive shopping spaces with original, affordable artwork and limited-edition prints.







The identity used a bright and vibrant colour palette with a bold pencil graphic, which worked as a directional graphic device throughout the exhibition space and printed material. The bold, colourful printed elements and large scale pencil models created a striking contrast against the backdrop of Somerset House’s Neoclassical architecture. Diamond shapes were used as a pattern to emphasis the festival aspect of the event.















Artists for Pick Me Up Selects were handpicked by Somerset House curators and an esteemed panel of industry insiders including Chrissie Macdonald and Andrew Rae. A group of international rising stars showcased work specially commissioned for the festival, including the brilliant talents Jean Jullien and Anna Lomax.







Each day the festival run an exciting and eclectic mix of events, from family workshops to professional portfolio forums. Events highlights included the Children’s Choice Weekend with Shaun the Sheep model-making workshops from the award-winning animation studio Aardman, cheeky comedy cartoons from Modern Toss and late night live music and live art mash-ups from the Heavy Pencil team.









Credits: Photos by Jess Bonham and Kevin Meredith. Curatorial team:
Sue Thompson, Claire Catterall, Cat Smith, Karishma Rafferty and Sarah Mann
Exhibition design, build and installation: Michael Marriott and The Whitewall Company. Overall identity: Studio EMMI and Chrissie Macdonald

Wonderwater Café at Leila's
London, UK

Wonderwater Café London was a pop-up event during London Design Festival, exploring the relationship between food and water consumption. It took place at Leila’s Shop, the brainchild of food expert and practitioner Leila McAlister, reputed for her choice of responsibly sourced food. Designed to raise awareness of the water footprint, Wonderwater aims to make us think about the impact of what we eat on local and global water use.















Studio EMMI created the information graphics for this pop-up event, including posters, window graphics, menus and wall boards. Visitors were able to enjoy a mouth-watering selection of responsibly sourced food, while digesting information from the vibrant infographics and dynamic visual displays, all of which conveyed mind-blowing facts about the water footprint of their meals.





Photos by Paola Pieroni
Wonderwater concept by Jane Withers & Kari Korkman. Water experts: King's College London. Wonderwater Café London was part of the World Design Capital Helsinki programme.

HEL/LO
Helsinki, Finland & London, UK






Studio EMMI created the visual concept for the talks and collaborated with Chrissie Macdonald from Peepshow Collective for the set designs. Each talk had a theme: Dreams, Games, Alternatives and Tomorrow which in turn influenced the set design; speakers' chairs, stage props and colours.

You can watch a behind the scenes film here about the working process between Emmi and Chrissie.


Photo by Veikko Kähkönen



Blueprint magazine wrote of the collaboration:

"At its heart, HEL/LO is about promoting dialogue and forging connections. In the spirit if HEL/LO, the logo, website and supporting media have been designed by London-based Finnish designer Emmi Salonen, of Studio EMMI. 'At the core of the HEL/LO concept lies a dialogue between Helsinki and London. My aim for the identity design is to bring this across by emphasising communication between two elements', says Salonen. 'The logo consists of two circles, hinting towards speech bubbles. By using two typefaces for the logo, English Gill Sans by Eric Gill and Finnish Cider by Tomi Haaparanta, we get the conversation going'.

Salonen will also be working on a spatial design for events with Chrissie Macdonald of the Peepshow Collective to create an installation that will provide the event with character. 'Me being a Finn and Chrissie being English will further emphasis the exchange of ideas,' says Salonen."























Above photos by Aleksi Niemelä


Photo by Veikko Kähkönen

You can watch all the talks here:

HEL/LO 1 – Let's Talk About Dreams
Speakers: Asif Khan, Hella Hernberg, Mobile Studio and Olli Sirén, chaired by Hanna Harris at The Gopher Hole, London.

HEL/LO 2 – Let's Talk About Games
Speakers: Martti Kalliala, Public Works, Studio Weave and YKON chaired by Owen Pritchard at The White Building, London.

HEL/LO 3 – Let's Talk About Alternatives
Speakers: Sean Griffiths, Alex Warnock-Smith, Annamari Vänskä and Krista Kosonen chaired by Beatrice Galilee at Paviljonki, Helsinki.

HEL/LO 4 – Let's Talk About Tomorrow
Speakers: Tuomas Toivonen, Timo Salli, Dick Powell, Rachel Armstrong, chaired by Johnny Tucker at designjunction, London.

Artek Catalogues
Europe & North America










Part of Studio EMMI's ongoing projects with Artek, we have updated the Artek Product Catalogue and designed one for Artek lights only. Below you can see invite designs following the same design theme.



Photos by Jere Salonen

Common Interest: Documents

Written and designed by Emmi Salonen, and published by Index Book, Common Interest: Documents explores document design and format solutions in the fields of arts, culture, academia, public sector and charities. Displayed, handed out or sold in art galleries, at cultural events and at other public places, these designs are widely accessible by everyone.







Including close to one hundred case studies from up to eighty design practices, this book is a practical guide and a rich source of graphic creativity in this genre for designers and clients alike. These resourceful and creative design solutions, achieved without large corporate budgets, focus on economical and environmental solutions as well as unique production and finishing techniques. Each study lists print and paper choices, together with details on finishing.

Common Interest is available to buy from selected bookshops across the UK, Amazon and Studio EMMI shop.











Photos by Jere Salonen