We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Eme Carranza. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Eme below.

Alright, Eme thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?

The first time I remodeled my house, I decided to knock down a wall. When I returned to see how it turned out, the space had changed and therefore my way of inhabiting it. That was the point where I realized the capacity we have as humans to alter the environment in which we live. To design the scenarios of our life. I said to myself: I want to do this, I want to create worlds where people live. Ideas are only that if they don’t materialize, not knowing how to do something and getting it done is the greatest satisfaction I find in my work. It started as my own path and today I share it with the entire team. The pleasure of surpassing ourselves every day as professionals is what keeps us creating.
In our case when we have an idea, an intention arises but we never know how it will turn out and that is the reason we like to participate in all stages of the process. There are many factors that define how to materialize an idea. On one hand the budget available to develop it and on the other, the resources available in the market. Every country’s market is different, particularly Argentina is a very hostile one to be able to stand out at an international level. The fact of having been able to create spaces with so much personality that have international repercussions made me realize in order to do great things you have to think big.
No process is the same as any other, ours is vertiginous, working with different materials in new trades for example. This is where the process overtakes the idea and many times we have results that surprise us. That is the beauty of working with artisanal processes and imperfect techniques, we lose control for a while and let ourselves be carried away by the unknown. It is at the edge of catastrophe where something unique happens and if we don’t take risks, we can never prove to ourselves what we are capable of doing.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am Eme Carranza, the fifth daughter of six siblings, which gave me a lot of freedom in my upbringing. I believe that the fact that my parents did not place their desires, fears or frustrations on me gave me the possibility to understand the world at a very young age from a very personal point of view. It was always difficult for me to define my profession, our way of knowing the world is to classify it through labels. Defining myself with a label makes me feel that I draw limits in my career. But basically what defines my career is my curiosity and the constant search for new challenges.
As for my education, I graduated as a graphic designer at the University of Buenos Aires in 2013. I taught graphic design at this institution for 3 years. I worked throughout my career in the publishing and branding world. I studied graphic design because I imagined myself designing books. I am fascinated by the book as an object and I always thought it was something that could become extinct. Today I think of the path of a space as the turning of the pages, with a cover and a rhythm.
The graphic world was not sufficient to express myself, so I immersed myself in the universe of cinema, scenography, and costumes as an autodidact. I asked myself how I would design if I had not gone through an institution and I could never answer it, so I started filming. In 2015, alongside Pablo Pivetta, we filmed a series of documentaries paying homage to the trades that are becoming extinct and will be missed. My admiration for the artisanal trades emerged at this point of my life, leading me later on to work alongside them. At the same time, I also worked as a freelance set designer and costume designer. It was my background in cinema that made me think of the settings as movie scenes. The concept as a plot from which the graphic universe and the materialities emerge.
My passion for gastronomy and cocktails led me to develop the graphic identity of several restaurants. I realized that the most difficult thing was finding something to say and through architecture, interior design, lighting, completely different approaches arise. It was there that I found a gap where I could bring a third dimension to the gastronomy industry, which was “the experience”. Through the fusion of all these disciplines that summon me and the trades that I am passionate about, the creation of my own studio was born.
In 2016 I founded the studio that bears my name based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, dedicated to the design of spaces and brand development. We provide a comprehensive service developing a concept that then crosses all the corners of a project. From the naming and graphic identity, through the layout of the space and its interior design to the tableware and uniforms. We believe that the synergy of all the elements that make up a place lays power and purity of communication.
Thanks to the success of the projects we developed, we expanded our frontiers and started working abroad. I traveled to Lisbon for a project and fell in love not only with the city but also with a Portuguese designer, Tiago Raimundo, with whom later in 2022 founded a new studio Rebel Rebel Design. Based in Lisbon and focused on the world of hospitality, the synergy of our gastronomic background with Tiago’s expertise in hospitality and nightclubs expanded our offer in the market.
The growth was exponential, carrying out projects in different continents simultaneously, we had the need to enlarge the team by hiring national and international people. Today we are working in Mexico, the United States, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Australia, Indonesia, Chile, Brazil and of course in Argentina and Portugal. Our next steps for 2024 will be to launch our own furniture line in an online store platform, with worldwide reach.
The team is made up of professionals from different disciplines, some self-taught but none explicitly linked to architecture or interior design. This means that no one is working in their comfort zone, but each one brings a completely different view of the spaces. We design our own patterns and furniture to provide a personalized service with unique pieces developed to measure. We work with crafts and artisans looking to create unique and unrepeatable pieces.
We seek to stimulate the senses and appeal to the emotional memory we have about the signs and elements that surround us. We get people to take ownership of the spaces and interact with them. Our main objective is to propose a new experience with a strong concept that is worth remembering.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal was changed throughout my career. At the beginning it was the search for a profession of my own, to find myself and understand what my view of the world was, what my vision is, what challenges me, what motivates me.
As a young latina woman without partners I was immersed in a market and a field of work led by men. So, my goal was to insert myself in the industry, and position myself and become a respected studio.
Once I realized that I no longer needed to prove anything to anyone, the context of Argentina began to make me feel like a tree in a very small pot. Taking the studio to an international level was the new goal, which later also became a reality.
Today my next goal is to expand the studio with a new business unit, which is the furniture line.
I don’t believe in goals that take a lifetime to achieve, I believe that there is no greater happiness than achieving what we dream of and that the most beautiful ability we have as human beings is to be flexible and transform ourselves. Otherwise we can remain prisoners of a dream of a person we used to be. I like to dream with my feet on the ground. I think, I wish and I do.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

We never imagined that a pandemic could happen, I think that most of the entrepreneurs with relatively small studies were not prepared to face such a strong financial blow. At that time we worked 100% in gastronomy and all of our projects fell through. I was working on our first projects abroad, in Brazil, Mexico, the United States and they all got cancelled. The house of cards collapsed, and now what do I do? I asked myself. I continued working on the projects I had even though I wasn’t getting paid, thinking that the storm would pass quickly and with time that beam of light started to get farther and farther away. So I thought, two things can happen, either I lose everything and have to reinvent myself or I invest my capital in training and growing the studio, aiming that when the pandemic passed, we would be ready to go all out. And since the last thing to lose is hope, I invested the capital I had in training the team, in participating in contests, everything that I wanted to but never got around it becayse I never stopped working. It was then when i was able to look back and understand what we have built in order to look forward knowing what i no longer wanted for this new stage that was approaching.We also worked ad honorem for clients we had, who were going through very difficult times, helping them rebuild their businesses. This was a key factor for building loyalty and after the pandemic it brought us a lot of results. There are things we cannot avoid or control, but as entrepreneurs, the last thing we should do is to give up. We have a wonderful privilege/ability to create and provide for others. It is important to assume that role with responsibility.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.emecarranza.studio
• Instagram: @emecarranza @rebelrebel.design

Image Credits
Ph. Laura Macias