05 Apr 2024 / Career Stories Design for Planet

Meet Design for Planet alumnus Antonia Fedder

Curious about career opportunities after completing a master’s degree in Design for Planet? In this interview series our alumni share their post-graduation experiences. Meet Antonia Fedder and learn about her career path and how her time at Design School Kolding influenced it.
By Marianne Baggesen Hilger

Tell us a bit about yourself!
Hi, I’m Antonia, a digital designer from Germany focusing on sustainable and inclusive design. I’m from Hamburg, Germany where I also recently re-located to. For my bachelor’s degree I studied communication design in Berlin, and continued to move to Denmark to study Design for Planet for my master’s degree.

Where do you work? What is your role and what are your tasks?
After finishing my master’s degree, I started my own design business. Early this year I finally launched my studio where I create sustainable and inclusive digital experiences for impact-driven clients. My work is value driven, I’m a brand and web designer and strategic concept developer. My focus topics include digital sustainability and participatory concepts. I work a lot with NGO’s and startups, specifically female founders. I’m also part of newly launched Re.Frame studio. We are an interdisciplinary strategic design studio and collective. We work with value-driven brands and organizations that strive for social, ecological, and economic sustainability. Aside from my work in Germany, I recently started a part-time position at Design School Kolding. As a research assistant in the Lab for Sustainability and Design I work as a digital designer, facilitator of design processes and design research. I support in teaching and supervision for the MA Design for Planet programme. My goal is to support digital sustainability and inclusive digital design further in the Design for Planet programme.

What is the value of a Planet Designer?
In my words of advice, I explain what I think the future of sustainable designers will be like, and why their importance can’t be underestimated.

What has been the role of the Design for Planet MA programme in getting you where you are today?
The Design for Planet Master’s programme opened up a path in life I never thought I’d take. When I left my Bachelor’s programme in Berlin, I was on a straight way into a full-time job in an advertisement agency. Not only was sustainability itself never on my radar before writing my thesis and diving into this world by accident, none of the topics I now consider to be existential to my work were.

The Design for Planet programme taught me a comprehensive understanding of sustainable processes, to experiment, be curious, engage and create in a sustainable and ethical ways. Most importantly, the school’s multidisciplinary approach taught me a completely different way of approaching design – through interdisciplinarity and collaboration. Before, all I knew was everyone fight for themselves. Now I include participatory design methods in my processes, follow a life-centered and not a human-centered design approach and involve different design and non-design perspectives as much as I can.

Can you tell us about an important memory?
In my final master's project I combined the approaches from both the Design for Planet and the Design for People programme, embracing both participatory design methods and the life-centred design approach. The combination of both became the foundation of my work. Design School Kolding paved the way to where I am now and more importantly to where I strive to get to.

Do you have any advice to give to someone undertaking this educational path?
The future is yours. The path to making an impact in sustainability can be challenging. Be patient and persistent. Do whatever it is you’re passionate about. From my perspective, sustainable designers will play a decisive role in shaping the future. Not only because of environmental urgency and consumer consciousness. Sustainable design prioritizes resilience and adaptability, upholding sustainable and ethical values whilst encouraging innovation and creativity. It’s not just about creating; it's about being conscious of the impact you make. Sustainability, like most topics, intersects with a lot of different fields. Embrace interdisciplinary learning to gain a more holistic perspective. Last words of advice: Collaborate and experiment as much as you can, and please, question everything!