Why?
Because the most interesting stories are the ones we stumble upon, then retell a thousand times.
Hello, I'm Emma.
Welcome to Fish Out of Water.
I’d love to say our philosophy was an intentionally curated idea. It wasn’t.
Turns out, I’ve been doing it subconsciously for years.
Looking back, there’s been a thread running through a seemingly unconnected collection of jobs, projects and questionable decisions. They always made complete sense to me. Apparently, from the outside, the connection was less obvious.
It started with fixing things.
I spent thirteen years as a mechanic, straight out of school, where understanding how things worked somehow also became: How can I make this experience better for the customer?
Then I went to university to study Art & Design. Which, on paper, looks like quite a career change.
Except I carried on doing much the same thing.
I started in interior design, where I spent time understanding how design worked and how it affected the end user. That led me to immersive design, where I could push those boundaries further — seeing what happened when participants were given a space to discover for themselves.
Eventually, that curiosity followed me into research, where I spent several years exploring how objects, spaces and experiences gather meaning through the people who encounter them.
Along the way, I kept making, designing and suggesting, “What if…?”
It’s only looking backwards that I can see the connections.
I’ve never been particularly good at leaving things as I found them.