Big Ideas. Made in Canada.
Emma Cochrane
Creative Director, Jackpine · Ottawa, Canada
Big systems.
Extraordinary detail.
Emma Cochrane is Jackpine’s creative director, an award-winning designer, artist and speaker whose work is collected by the Canada Science and Technology Museum. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University and a Master of Future Cities from the University of Waterloo. Co-creator of Canada Is Not For Sale® and Lake Ontario Hat, she was jointly named a 2025 Newsmaker of the Year alongside Liam Mooney. Her speaking engagements include DemocracyXChange in Toronto and the National Sustainability Society conference at the University of Notre Dame. Her practice spans brands, places, products and digital experiences, combining systems thinking with precise creative execution.
Creative direction and systems thinking
See the whole. Make every part work.
Emma can organize a large body of information, identify the relationships that matter and give it a structure people can understand. She is equally at home refining a sentence, resolving a small interface detail or developing the visual language of an entire organization.
Her approach combines architectural thinking with an artist’s eye and a practical curiosity about technology. She moves comfortably between physical and digital work, using each medium to serve the idea and the people who will encounter it.
Clients value her patience, thoughtful questions and ability to carry an ambitious concept through to a carefully finished result. She has helped build Jackpine since 2013, working directly with clients from the first conversation through to delivery.
A broad creative practice
Design across scales and disciplines.
Brands and communications
Brand identities, campaigns, messaging, writing, presentations and packaging. Emma builds coherent systems that give organizations a recognizable voice and presence.
Spaces and places
Spatial concepts, signage, wayfinding, branded environments and art installations. Her architectural background helps connect a place’s purpose to the way people experience it.
Digital experiences
Websites, interfaces and digital experiences that make information easier to navigate and ideas easier to use. Emma brings a quiet technical fluency to the relationship between design and implementation.
Products and art
Objects, apparel, product concepts and artistic work that bring an idea into everyday life. Her work is collected by the Canada Science and Technology Museum.
Canada Is Not For Sale® and Lake Ontario
Give a public idea a form people recognize.
Emma co-created Canada Is Not For Sale® and Lake Ontario Hat with Liam Mooney, leading the design and creative direction of both ventures.
Her work gave these ideas a clear, wearable expression and helped carry them into public life. It connects cultural awareness with the practical work of developing products, building a brand and responding to demand.
Through these ventures and Jackpine’s client work, Emma has worked with leaders across business, government and civil society. She helps them turn the demands of a changing moment into a message, identity or experience people can understand and act on.
Emma and Liam were jointly named 2025 Newsmakers of the Year by the Ottawa Business Journal and Ottawa Board of Trade at the Best Ottawa Business Awards.
Education and creative roots
From Ottawa. Thinking beyond it.
Emma holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University and a Master of Future Cities from the University of Waterloo.
She grew up in Ottawa with two creative parents, a professional photographer and a professional designer, and attended Canterbury High School’s arts program. That early grounding in observation and making continues to shape her practice.
Her education connects the design of individual objects and spaces to the larger social, technological and urban systems around them.
Speaking and public ideas
Bring the idea into the room.
Emma speaks about design, systems, place and the work of turning ideas into action. In 2025, she gave a keynote address at DemocracyXChange in Toronto and spoke at the National Sustainability Society conference at the University of Notre Dame.
She brings the perspective of a working designer and entrepreneur: how to organize complexity, develop a compelling expression and keep an idea coherent as it moves into the world.
Work directly with Jackpine
What are you ready to create?
Bring Emma a complex challenge, an ambitious idea or something that needs a clearer form. Together with Liam Mooney, she connects strategy and design from the first decision to the finished work.