DA Conversations Podcast with Emma Kaniuk and Tana Mitchell

Design Assembly Conversations

Kia ora and welcome to Design Assembly Conversations. In this series we talk to NZ designers, hear their stories and celebrate their work. I’m Louise and today I’m talking to Emma Kaniuk and Tana Mitchell from Akin. Emma and Tana co-founded Akin in 2015, a strategic design studio focused on creating engaging, seductive and effective brand solutions that grab people’s attention and hearts. Previous to starting Akin, they both spent time at Designworks. Emma has also worked at Special Group in Auckand and Sydney and Tana has worked at studios in Auckland, Wellington and overseas in New York and Berlin. They have been awarded for their work at the Best Awards with purple pins and overseas in the AGDA awards, D&AD and Designweek awards amongst others. (It is important to place this conversation in context of being in the middle of an uncertain landscape and challenges brought about by Covid-19. The virus arrived in New Zealand in February and on the 25 March 2020, we went into Level 4 lock-down. This podcast is released on the 28th of May 2020 as we transition into Level 2 which dictates the design community may start to return to working from studios as our economy cautiously restarts.)