Tanel Kärp

Designing for many hands.

I’m Tanel Kärp, a design lead and strategic designer for complex public, social and sustainability problems. I build the shared tools, formats and skills that let many people do better work, so services, organisations and everyday choices change for good.

For eight years I led the Interaction Design MA at the Estonian Academy of Arts, where I am now Design Lead. My practice, Ars Experientia, does service design, training and facilitation.

Open to projects, training, talks and conversations about design leadership, in Estonia or abroad.

Work together

Selected work

Public services and social innovation, 2021–2026

Public services that work for people

These projects usually start with a brief about one part of a system: a waiting list, a hospital discharge, a new medical technology. They soon turn out to be about how people, organisations, policy and everyday behaviour fit together. My part is to map the whole picture, frame the situation and make the different perspectives visible, so that partners can decide what to build and why.

  • Hip and knee replacement care journey⁠—replacing a years-long waiting list with active preparation, with the Estonian Health Insurance Fund. More about this project
  • Birth journey for Hiiumaa families⁠—a human-centred birth journey for families on Estonia’s second-largest island, with North Estonia Medical Centre.
  • Supporting heart patients beyond hospital discharge⁠—research and concepts with the Heart Clinic of Tartu University Hospital. More about this project
  • Genetics-based medicine and family doctors⁠—helping family doctors bring personalised medicine into everyday care, with the Estonian Institute of Genomics. More about this project
  • Young Ukrainian refugees in Estonian schools⁠—helping Estonian and Ukrainian teenagers find common ground, with the Estonian Refugee Council. More about this project

Design capability, 2018–2026

Organisations that can change themselves

For most of the past decade I have designed learning environments, methods and programmes that help people use design in their own work, from a master’s curriculum to programmes for company leaders. Anyone can learn the methods. What I care about is the confidence and judgement that only come from working on real problems.

  • Interaction Design MA at EKA⁠—growing the next generation of responsible design practitioners. More about this work
  • Green Tiger Academy and EIS Circular Design Masterclass⁠—helping more than 40 organisations turn green ambitions into services, products and strategies. More about this programme
  • Future skills⁠—a programme for teachers, lecturers and trainers on designing student-centred learning, with HARNO. More about this programme
  • Beyond Circular Design⁠—an advanced course connecting systems-oriented design with frame innovation, with the Estonian Design Centre. More about this course
  • Design inside the academy⁠—D-Team, where staff take real challenges from their own work through design; the design process behind the academy’s institutional strategy; and KAVA, a curriculum incubator for creative universities. More about this work

Circular design and sustainable behaviour, 2011–2025

Better choices, built into the system

Sustainability has run through my work since 2011, when I worked with Reet Aus on Track Your Jeans, and my 2013 thesis on gamifying green behaviour. Sorting waste, preparing for a hospital test or rethinking what a timber company sells: each comes down to a moment when someone has to choose. I design for that moment and for the system around it, so that the better choice is also the easier one.

  • Estonian Recycling Pictogram System⁠—one visual language for sorting waste, wherever you are in Estonia. More about this project
  • Kuhuviia.ee⁠—answering a question all of us have: what to do with the things we no longer need. More about this project
  • Lotus Timber and EstHus⁠—turning circular audits into new product and service directions for timber and housing companies. More about this work
  • Behavioural design with a hospital and Statistics Estonia⁠—PET scan preparation, blood donation and cancer screening with North Estonia Medical Centre; timely data submission and survey participation with Statistics Estonia.
  • Effectify⁠—a green lifestyle coaching and employee engagement platform built on behavioural psychology and gamification.

Digital products and civic tech, 2001–2025

Platforms that people build on

I designed my first interface at 13 and spent my first decade making websites, interfaces and digital products. That hands-on work gave me my sense of what is useful, usable and desirable, and taught me how an idea actually travels from research to a working product.

  • Hooandja⁠—co-founded and designed the Baltics’ leading reward-based crowdfunding platform, which also gave Estonian a new expression: hoogu andma, to back a project.
  • BillFuel⁠—making getting paid easier, so creatives can focus on their main job.
  • Civic tech with Praxis⁠—Meieraha, which made the state budget personal, and Valitsemise Valvurid (Bronze, Estonian Design Awards 2012); and Aybolit, an anti-corruption platform with Transparency International.
  • The EU Presidency platform and Artun.ee⁠—for Estonia’s EU Presidency, the brief asked only for visual design, so I proposed research and ran co-design workshops with the officials. For the Estonian Academy of Arts website, 30+ interviews and co-design across about 30 departments.
  • My own sites and code⁠—from my own content management system in the early years to IxD.ma (2025) and Tööstuse Salong (2024).

Clients and partners includethe Estonian Health Insurance Fund, North Estonia Medical Centre, Tartu University Hospital, Statistics Estonia, the Estonian Refugee Council, Microsoft Estonia, Transparency International, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, Tallinn City Government, Ericsson, Bigbank, Thermory and Praxis.

Experience

2010–…

Estonian Academy of Arts

  • 2024–…Design Lead
    Bringing design-led ways of working into the academy’s management, internal services and organisational development, together with its leadership, academic staff and support units.
  • 2018–2026Head of Interaction Design MA Curriculum
    Led the programme for eight years through curriculum development, team leadership, international partnerships, industry collaboration and practice-based learning; helped develop and launch SDSI, an Erasmus Mundus joint master’s with partners in Latvia, Germany and Finland.
  • 2017–…Associate Professor
    Teaching and supervising interaction, service, emotional and circular design, social innovation and graduate projects.
  • 2010–2017Visiting Lecturer
    Studio courses in web design, user experience and human-centred interaction design.

2011–…

Design Partner and Consultant, Ars Experientia

My independent practice for strategic design, service design, facilitation, UX and circular design. Projects have ranged from public-sector services and healthcare journeys to circular transition programmes, workshops, prototypes and digital platforms.

2014–…

Design Lead and co-founder, Things Foundation

A collective of strategists, designers, data specialists and environmental experts making practical tools for more sustainable behaviour: Kuhuviia.ee, the recycling pictograms, behavioural interventions and public sustainability communication.

2011–2023

Co-Founder and Designer, Hooandja

Co-founded and designed the Baltics’ leading reward-based crowdfunding platform, responsible for its product and service design, user experience, visual identity and early platform development.

2014–2018

Visiting Lecturer, Tallinn University of Technology

Human-centred interaction design courses for the Design & Engineering MA programme.

2001–2011

Designer and Developer, self-employed

Web, interface and visual design, information architecture and front-end development for clients.

Juries

  • 2026Estonian Design Awards
    Service design jury
  • 2022–…European Design Awards
    Digital applications jury

Education and languages

  • 2013MA cum laude, Design and Development of Virtual Environments
    University of Tartu
  • 2010BA, Graphic Design
    Estonian Academy of Arts
  • Estonian (native), English (full professional), French (limited working), Russian (elementary)

Training

Every training I run is designed for the organisation that asks for it, around what it needs rather than only what it asks for. Within that, participants practise on real situations from their own work, so the methods are already in use when we finish.

Ways to work together

  • Programmes⁠—teams take a real challenge from the first question to a prototype, like Green Tiger Academy, D-Team and KAVA.
  • Workshops and seminars⁠—a single day on one concrete question, like Make your data talk at TalTech. More about this seminar
  • Courses⁠—for universities and professional programmes, like UX Design with AI at EBS.
  • Facilitation⁠—co-design and strategy work with many stakeholders, like the academy’s institutional strategy.

Recent training and teaching

  • 2026UX Design with AI
    EBS, Digital Product Management micro-degree
  • 2026Make your data talk: info visualisation with AI
    One-day seminar, TalTech
  • 2026Future skills: how to design student-centred learning experiences
    Development programme, HARNO
  • 2025Beyond Circular Design
    Development programme, Estonian Design Centre
  • 2024Design for Emotional Wellbeing
    Kyushu University, Japan
All training and teaching

Talks

Design frames how we work, live and play—and, in time, what we value.

Design affects us far more than we notice: how we decide, how we relate to each other and, over time, even what we value. The environments we create, physical and digital, in turn create us. Every design decision is a decision about how people live, which is why I care about what design does to people, not only how it looks or works.

That influence keeps growing, and so does the world it works in. AI, fast technology, social change and the climate crisis make our problems more tangled every year. We need better ways of understanding and solving them, and design is one of them: it finds the real question, brings people together around it and turns ideas into something that works. When AI makes making cheap, creative judgement—knowing what is worth making—matters more, not less.

I’ve long described design in four words: creativity led by empathy. It starts from understanding people, and it still needs room to imagine. Good design is useful, usable and emotionally right, aware of how a solution makes us feel and act. So I design services and tools that activate people: they start from people’s needs and capabilities rather than the system’s logic, involve people for real, and leave them more capable than before. Human-centred design alone is no longer enough; the planet has to be part of the brief too.

I talk about how organisations learn design by doing, about behaviour inside systems and sustainable choices, and about service design with frame innovation.

Selected talks and appearances

  • 2026Disainimõte #1: Ring
    EKA Podcast, on circular design, with Stella Runnel (in Estonian). Listen on Spotify
  • 2024How Universal is the Language of Design?
    KYU Seminar “Design With Loneliness”, Kyushu, Japan
  • 2023Sustainability in Practice: Nudging sustainable behaviour
    World Usability Day Estonia
  • 2022Design in Times of Change
    Design Talks 9, Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, Riga, Latvia
  • 2022From Designer to Designer
    European Design Awards Festival seminar, moderation, Estonian Design Centre, Tallinn
All talks and appearances

Selected writing

  • 2024Personaalne, kuid üksildane riik
    Article for ERR, with Ruth-Helene Melioranski, on personalisation, loneliness and public services (in Estonian).
  • 2023Digital Tools for Creative Collaboration
    Publication and international R&D on digital collaboration in art and design education.
  • 2021Hip and knee replacement care journey report
    Service design report proposing a patient-centred national care journey.
  • 2013Verifying the Application of Online Gamification Methods to Introduce Pro-Environmental Behaviour
    MA thesis, University of Tartu.

Recognition

2024

Estonian Design Awards, Gold in Service Design for the Public Sector

For the redesigned hip and knee replacement care journey, with the Estonian Health Insurance Fund.
Issued by the Estonian Design Centre, at Estonia’s national design awards.

2024

Baltic Sustainability Awards, winner in Design

For the Estonian Recycling Pictogram System.
Issued by the Baltic Sustainability Forum.

2022

Mentor of the Year

For producing trainings on Design Sprints and Emotional Design.
Issued by the Estonian Academy of Arts Open Academy.

2020

Supervisor of the Year

For supervising MA theses.
Issued by the Council of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

2020

Clear Communication Award, nomination

For developing nationwide packaging sorting instructions and visual guidance.
Issued by the Clear Communication Awards.
All awards

Work together

Projects, training programmes, facilitation and talks, in Estonia or abroad. Say hi by email or on LinkedIn.


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