We recently connected with Carolina Haddad and have shared our conversation below.

Carolina Haddad, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

I hope to be remembered as someone who made meaningful differences in people’s lives, even if it was small. Someone who brought clarity, empathy, and purpose to complex challenges. Not necessarily through grand gestures, but by showing up with consistency, curiosity, and care. If people say I helped them feel seen, supported, or even just a little lighter in their day, that’s the legacy I want to leave. Design, to me, is a tool for connection, and I want my work to reflect that, one thoughtful choice at a time.

Carolina Haddad, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Carolina Haddad, I am from Brasil. Since 2022 I am studying Product and Service Design, but in the meantime I have always worked with design.

I have always been a really sensible kid, always cried and expressed my emotions purely. I grew up being told that this was my great weakness and that I had to get over that. This is curious, because nowadays I feel that this sensitivity is my greatest strength, the most beautiful thing I have, it makes me see the world differently, paying attention to details, understanding what hasn’t been said and empathizing with people. Today, as a designer, I’m very grateful to my past self, my child self, for not having changed that, for having continued with that sensitivity, because it makes me a better professional.

I am driven by the desire to positively impact people’s lives, combining my sensibility, curiosity and empathy to deeply understand their needs and create human-centered designs.

I have created different kinds of projects
Moodular toys for children:
My goal was to create toys and furnitures that allowed children to explore freely their creativity and autonomy, with safe objects that were designed thinking about their core educational and ludic needs.
– My main project is Cantin, a modular furniture for children (can be seen in this link: https://www.behance.net/gallery/186465013/Cantin-mobiliario-modular-infantil). Cantin is a way of learning that stimulates children’s imagination and creativity every day. Offering children the chance to explore, experiment and create, Cantin is a set of pieces that can be transformed into a variety of games. It’s a simple and easy-to-understand toy that allows children to be free and creative.

Service design:
– A guide to agile and efficient portfolio management for a retail company, that specifies all the metrics, data and tasks that each area of the company needs to do on a daily basis. This project was really important for my professional development, because I learner how to run a business, how to measure success and identify ploblems.

Packaging design:
– I create packaging designs for different kinds of products, like chocolate, coffee and t-shirts.

Today I work as a product and service designer in a furniture design company for early childhood education, where I can put into practice my purpose of making a difference in people’s lives. At the same time, I work as a freelancer standardizing internal company information, creating graphic presentations, developing product collections, strategic product design projects and packaging.

Also, I am starting to design a collection of modular toys for children, to sell initially in fairs and online.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

My best source of new clients are educational toy stores, where I can find people that believe in my products and the concept behind it.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

The Creative ACT: A Way of Being – Rick Rubin.

I really believe in the power that the universe has over us and over the world, so this book made me realize other forms of this “divine connection”.
The concept that all ideas have their right time to come into the world reassures me a lot. I often find myself thinking about all the ideas that I’m never going to put into practice, and that makes me anxious. But Rick Rubin says that if the idea hasn’t come to life, it’s because it’s not yet time, and this has guided me professionally ever since.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/carolinacarignani
• Instagram: @insidecaroldesigns
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolina-haddad-carignani-971400223/