For WDC 2026, the Women*s Design Academy invites you to a hands-on workshop, lecture, and subsequent get-together.
The event begins with two workshops: open experimentation fosters an awareness of tools and tangible results, for change and scalability. Together, we will develop spontaneous design solutions that strengthen gender equality through artistic means and open up new perspectives. The subsequent lecture by artist, author, and type designer Charlotte Rohde will offer a further dimension to the interwoven concepts of gender and design. To conclude, we will gather with cold drinks in and outside the gallery for a get-together.
The Hanna Bekker vom Rath gallery, centrally located in Frankfurt, is one of the city's oldest galleries with a remarkable history: its founder and namesake offered secret exhibition opportunities to artists persecuted and ostracised by the national socialists. Today, the gallery showcases both Classic Modernism and Contemporary positions. As galleries are generally closed on Mondays, we can occupy the premises all day.
Monday, 08/06/2026
14.00–17.00 Workshops
Judith Augustin and Sophie Dobrigkeit “Stranger things: Tangible change and scalability“
Vera Kunz “From Crying to Smiling — In Two Steps Into an Emotional Pattern
How are you feeling today?“
Evening event
6pm entry
c. 18:15 Introduction by Judith Augustin and Sophie Dobrigkeit
Lecture Charlotte Rohde
”I’m not a writer, I’m a wronger“
Followed by: a get-together with snacks and drinks
Photos: Karolina Krausser
Galerie Hanna Bekker vom Rath
Braubachstrasse 12, 60311 Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt City Centre, Dom/Römer
collaborations
Vera Kunz
Artist and designer
littlespin.studio
Vera Kunz is an artist and designer. She studied art history at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and Visual Communication at the University of Art and Design (HfG) Offenbach. As the founder of the design studio Little Spin, she specialises in Art Direction and User Interface Design.
Since 2017, she has been a member of the SfVR – Space for Visual Research, a workshop and laboratory format for experimental research into new graphic and abstract visual worlds at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Together with Markus Weisbeck, she develops international teaching formats such as university courses and workshops in Taiwan, China, Macau, Korea, Japan, Bolivia and Iran.
Her current focus is on conceptual design and experimental research.
Photo: ©SCHMOTT
Charlotte Rohde
Artist, author and type designer
charlotterohde.de
Charlotte Rohde (DE, *1992) is an artist, author, and type designer based in Berlin. She studied at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. Language is the central medium of her work, materialising in typefaces, texts, installations, and performances. Her work occupies a unique position between design, theory and art: design tools are used for investigative, artistic work.
From 2022 to 2024, Rohde was a visiting professor for typography and typeface design at the Bauhaus University Weimar. She gave lectures at, among others, Princeton University and the University of the Arts Berlin, from the Sandberg Institute, Central Saint Martins and the Estonian Academy of the Arts. In 2024, her first monograph „You Loved An Image“ was released by DISTANZ Verlag Berlin.
Since 2020, she has led SoliType with Vivien Hoffmann, which raises funds for organisations supporting refugees in the EU through independent typeface designs. With Max Weinland, she runs „WhatIsMyWorkWorth?“, a platform about pricing, work, and critique of capitalism in the field of typography.
Her works have been shown at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, at the Klingspor Museum Offenbach, NEVERNEVERLAND Amsterdam, Autohaus.Autohaus Kassel and Soft Power Berlin.
Photo: ©Nikola Lamburov
Women*s Design Academy
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about
The Women*s Design Academy is a collective space for knowledge production, practice, and structural transformation. A place where questions are asked, experiences are shared, structures are analysed, and scopes of action are expanded together.
W*DA brings together women* and FLINTA individuals from design, art, and related disciplines to experimentally question and new design professional and structural conditions.
What do we need to work well? What do we want to know? The Women*s Design Academy is dialogic, collaborative and research-based. We aim to create awareness and enable tangible design outcomes that trigger positive change.
context
The W*DA is characterised by intersectional feminism; it is accessible, intergenerational, and democratic. Knowledge is not created hierarchically, but through experience and exchange.
The Women*s Design Academy understands feminism as a collaborative and research-oriented practice for process-driven, experience-based, and interdisciplinary work.
At the same time, positions are reflected: Privileges are not legitimacy, but responsibility — to open up spaces, share resources, and broaden perspectives.
team
Photo: ©Andrea Breyer
Judith Augustin
Artist, Creative Director
Studio Augustin
Judith Augustin is an artist and designer; she lives and works in Frankfurt am Main. Before founding StudioAugustin, she worked as a Creative Director for design and digital agencies in the Rhine-Main region, Paris, and Costa Rica. Her design studio specialises in branding, UX design, social media, and various digital applications.
Sophie Dobrigkeit
Designer, Creative Director
Dobrigkeit Design
Sophie Dobrigkeit is a designer, creative director and owner of Dobrigkeit Design in Bensheim an der Bergstrasse. Her current projects include strategic brand development as well as the conception and implementation of branding concepts for events – in both analogue and digital spaces. She is founder of the experimental workshop OUGRAPO and a lecturer for design fundamentals and design methodology.
background
Judith Augustin and Sophie Dobrigkeit are committed to the sustainable networking of women* in design, self-determined career paths, and female* leadership. Since 2021, they have been jointly organising and moderating various formats, the heart of which is the DDC Women's Table, which they host bi-monthly — now with over 30 events digitally and in person in Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart and Berlin.
Another project within the German Design Club is the programme series Learn & Burn, which they co-initiated in 2021 with the event "Learn & Burn — Lab for Female and Diverse Leadership".
Augustin and Dobrigkeit regularly appear on panels and in talks concerning feminism and gender equality, as well as collaborative creativity in the art and design sector. They cooperate with other networks, such as the women artists' network. Frankfurter Kranz.
For businesses, they developed the Cross Innovation Workshops series, in which project teams collaboratively generate ideas using design methods.
formats (selection)
Since 2021 — DDC Women's Table — Programme, Moderation, Community
2026 — Learn & Burn – Day for Female Networking
2025 - Learn & Burn - Action Day
2021 – Learn & Burn – Lab for Female Leadership
talks
2026 — „Women in Design – Where Are We Now?“ Gender Equality in the Creative Industries,
GCES / German Creative Economy Summit, Hamburg
2026 — Panel talk „Designing Feministically?“, organised by Merle Hesse, Lilli Britsch, Luisa Laurion and Smilla Thöle, HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Hildesheim
2025 — Keynote Address: „I can do anything. But not everything.“
Learn & Burn Action Day, Frankfurt am Main (JA)
2025 — Podcast „Designing Feminism“
DDCAST 214 – Judith Augustin / Sophie Dobrigkeit
2024 – „I am not a kitchen“ Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
Literary Salon, Frankfurt am Main (JA)
2023 — „HOW DEMOCRATIC CAN A DESIGN COMPETITION BE?“
Podium discussion at CLUK Creative Week, Frankfurt am Main (JA)
2022 — „Design, Democracy & Women of DDC“ – Panel discussion at CLUK Creative Week, Frankfurt am Main (SD)
Workshops
2025 – Unleashing Female Creativity, GE Healthcare – DACH Women’s Network
2025 — Female Creativity Empowerment, GE Healthcare – DACH Women's Network
2023 — Networking Reimagined, Keynote and Workshop at the BusinessWomenBergstraße Member Meeting
2023 — DDC Learn & Burn Innovation Workshop, Creative Industries Day Hessen, Frankfurt am Main
2022 — Out of the creative block, Lunch Workshop Content Marketing Forum
Jury
2025 — DDC AWARD 2025 „WHAT IS GOOD“
Jury Digital Design (JA)
2023 KONSTANZ DESIGN AWARD
Jury Bachelor's and Master's Theses HTWG Konstanz University of Applied Sciences (JA)
2023 DDC AWARD „WAS IST GUT“
Jury Branding / CI (JA)
2023 DOKFEST KASSEL
Kassel Film & Documentary Festival
GOLDEN CUBE Jury (JA)
2022 „Feels Like Hessen“ Jury Calendar Competition (SD)
Teaching
2024–2025 Lecturer in UX/UI Design, Digital
DTP ACADEMY RheinMain (JA)
2012–2018 Visiting Professorships Corporate Design, Typography and Interactive Design — Mainz University of Applied Sciences (SD)
2003–2017 Lecturer in Design fundamentals, Concept and Design, and Typography — Mainz University of Applied Sciences (SD)
1999–2000 Teaching assistant graphic design,
California Institute of the Arts, USA (SD)
thanks to:
Women*s Design Academy
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