We were lucky to catch up with Emilie Eklund recently and have shared our conversation below.

Emilie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

One of the most meaningful projects I have worked on was building a creative retreat for women. Alongside a dear friend, we created a 3 day, 2 night retreat that gave space for women to rest, explore their creativity, and connect with nature, each other, and, most importantly, themselves. It was such a beautiful thing to see women taking space for themselves, and use creative practices to ground back into this moment. For a long time, I have used creative practices (like sketching, journaling, painting…) as a way to connect my body, heart, and mind; to use these practices to step back into this moment with my full self. So creating space for others to do the same felt so meaningful and was such a sacred thing to witness.

Emilie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hi, my name is Emilie Eklund, and I run LIEFdesign, an illustrated paper + home goods studio, centered on connection and delight.

Why connection and delight? To me, connection is at the heart of who we are as humans. It bring depth and life to our relationships with others, ourselves, and this beautiful earth we call home. And delight, well, it brings a unique beauty and joy to my everyday, that I try and cultivate as often as I can. Even the business name, LIEF, embodies this pairing. Lief comes from the Dutch language, meaning sweet, as an endearment. So here’s to lief, and to using design to cultivate more of it.

Growing up I heard this word often, as my father grew up in Amsterdam, and it would often give me this feeling of both connection and delight. I started this company in 2007, while living in my tiny Chicago apartment. Now 18 years later, I’m back in my hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, creating and designing in my cozy attic studio, nestled close to a beloved two hundred plus acre Nature Preserve. The connection between nature + my design work is strong; finding inspiration, connection, and groundedness from its depth and beauty. I feel deeply grateful to have a studio so close to the trees, the critters, the fields, and the streams.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

A big pivot in my work and life came after having my second child. Prior to then I was doing a lot of custom design work for people, which what fun, but meant my hands needed to be doing the work every time. But with two small kids I didn’t have the capacity to be working as much as I did before, so I made the decision to put my energy toward wholesale, with the hopes that I would have more passive income. It was a lot of work; so much so that had I known then what I do now, I probably would not have done that so soon postpartum, but that’s part of the process! Ha! :) I launched my wholesale catalog, hundreds of new products, and all the work to get those products online, and in the end I was so grateful to have made this shift and that I was able to adapt to make my work fit into this new season of life.

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

For me, my continual mission is to use my creativity as a way of connection. Connection with myself, and my community. I have found such transformative power in simple acts of creative practices, that this is often top of mind for me. If I’m feeling off, or in a space of little inspiration/creative force, sitting down in a coffee shop with my sketchbook and a hot drink often makes space for my inner world to connect and find a spark of inspiration. I also do and have done a lot of workshops and retreats over the past 20 years, and a big part of that for me is finding such joy in creating space for others to do the same. To slow down and allow the creative practice to bring you back to this present moment.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.liefdesign.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liefdesign
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liefdesign

Image Credits

MittenTog
Lindybeth Photography