short vita

Sonja Knecht was born in Indonesia, grew up in Venezuela, and is deep-rooted in Deutsch. She holds a B.A. in Translation from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Southern Germany and (soon) an M.A. in Biographical and Creative Writing from Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin. 

Her first jobs as a graphic artist and desktop publisher in Hamburg led her to typography and to her passion, text. An expert for corporate text, brand language, and verbal identity, Sonja was Director Text and Senior Manager Communications at Erik Spiekermann’s design agency Edenspiekermann. She set up a 30-strong editorial team for TYPO International Design Talks and served as their moderator. Sonja worked for clients such as the Bauhaus-Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung, Bosch, Cornelsen, Gestalten, Hering Berlin, Deutsche Jazzunion, Deutsche Post DHL, Messe Frankfurt, Mercedes Benz, Oxfam Germany. She was on the board of Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI); she is a member at Buchstabenmuseum Berlin, and a host of Typostammtisch Berlin.

Sonja was a lecturer for creative writing at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle (Germany) in 2017/18, and a guest lecturer at art universities in Bremen, Essen, Münster, and Saarbrücken. She regularly works at the Federal Education and Research Institute for Graphics in Vienna, Austria; and, new since 2022, at Schule für Gestaltung St.Gallen in Switzerland.

Since 2016, Sonja Knecht has been lecturing at Berlin University of the Arts. Her focus is to link verbal and visual design. Thus, she helped to implement the Visual Communication Basics Blog (Prof. Ulrich Schwarz, KM Thomas Lehner). In the Design for Business and Advertising class (Prof. Uwe Vock, KM Gosia Warrink), Sonja has been providing conceptual writing courses. Among exhibitions and many student projects, she helped to develop the campaign for the 2019 Rundgang.

On behalf of Prof. Barbara Kotte, Klasse Kampagnen, Sonja Knecht has been establishing her Text & Storytelling course since winter 2022/23.

Since 2020, Sonja also provides writing seminars (in English) at Berlin Career College’s Summer University of the Arts.

Links

txet.de