This week on the DesignThinkers podcast, I’m joined by Nu Goteh, founder of Room for Magic and co-founder of Deem Journal.

Nu’s path into design isn’t a straight line. He started out making graphics on early internet platforms, spent over a decade working in marketing for brands like Puma, Red Bull, and Sonos, and eventually returned to design through a deeper set of questions—about power, participation, and how he wanted to show up in the world.

In this conversation, we talk about what it really means to design with communities—not just for them—and why that work often comes down to time, trust, and budget. We get into the limits of performative “purpose,” the realities of working with clients, and how design can move beyond outputs to shaping systems.

We also talk about Deem Journal: a print publication that explores design as a social practice. We discuss why print as a medium still matters, especially as a way to document, archive, and expand what we consider to be design.

This episode is for anyone thinking more critically about their role as a designer—whether you’re early in your career or rethinking what your practice is really in service of.

Follow us on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit us online at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

Emmi Salonen is a Finnish graphic designer and art director whose work spans editorial design, visual identity, publishing, and exhibition graphics. She often works with cultural and institutional clients, bringing a thoughtful, systems-driven approach to typography and structure—with just enough play to keep things interesting.

Beyond the systems and the structure, Emmi has long been thinking about something deeper: the conditions that allow creative work to be sustainable over time.

Her new book, The Creative Wellbeing Handbook, explores creativity not as a lightning strike or a productivity hack, but as an ecosystem: something that needs tending to.

In this conversation, we talk about burnout, systems, slowness, education, and what it really means to protect your creative energy in an industry that often demands constant output. We also talk about typography, control, joy, and the small signals we ignore when we’re pushing too hard.

This episode is for anyone who loves design—and wants to keep loving it.

Follow us on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit us online at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

This week on the DesignThinkers podcast, I’m joined by Elizabeth Goodspeed. Elizabeth is an independent designer, art director, writer, and educator oscillating between Providence, Rhode Island and New York City. Her work riffs on history and visual culture in ways that feel both smart and weirdly intimate. She’s a devoted generalist: branding, packaging, book & editorial design. She’s also known for her sharp writing on the culture of design as the American editor-at-large for It’s Nice That.

In this conversation, Elizabeth shares how her fascination with archives and ephemera became a creative method. We talk about how you can use design history without getting stuck in nostalgia, why research can be a powerful tool for original thinking, and what it means to design when you think in words before images. We also explore her approach to teaching, the value of slow craft, and how paying closer attention to the visual world around us can change the way we work.

This episode is for anyone who wants to build more depth into their practice. Whether you’re trying to move beyond trends, develop a stronger point of view, or simply learn how to turn curiosity into compelling creative work.

Let’s get into it.

Follow us on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit us online at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.