Diploma project (2020) by Lucas Haussener
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BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Nicolas Poillot
By conceptualizing and producing visual content as part of an editorial series, students will explore the concept of applied photography in a practical, creative, and professional manner, working closely with Art Director Nicolas Poillot.
BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
by Leandra Adler, Cansu Celen, Layana Comte, Anaïs Dermont, Camille Genoud, Eve Gremaud, Eloïse Guillod, Mathis Harmant, Marie Hintzy, Matteo Lucca, Maxime Manera, Gaëtan Mauclair, Mathys Mauron, Emma Morisseau, Sara Pedersoli, Lucie Pittet, Hélène Prongué, Leonardo Mariucci, Alice Refachinho, Justine Renevey, Gaspard Schlatter, Laura Simons, Vu Toni Thien Duc, Maïa Yassin, Jonas Zesiger
In November 2025, 27 ECAL students took part in Work and Turn, a workshop led by Geoff Han exploring the theme of labor and the often overlooked work that sustains the school. Located in a former IRIL knitwear factory in the industrial area of Renens, ECAL occupies a vast building whose daily functioning depends on many visible and invisible forms of labor. Over five days, students worked in small teams to produce a collective 96-page pocket-sized publication. Each pair created an 8-page photographic visual essay focusing on a specific aspect of labor at ECAL. Rather than relying on traditional portraits, the projects explored more poetic and indirect ways of documenting traces of work through spaces, gestures, materials, and infrastructures. The entire publication was manually printed on an offset press by the students themselves, in either black or red and black. The printing process was a central part of the workshop: participants prepared the plates, set up the press, and ran the prints. This hands-on production process echoed the theme of labor explored throughout the publication.
BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
with Diego Bontognali
As part of this editorial design course, students developed a research-based project focused on the selection and design of texts around a shared theme. Based on a curated set of sources, each project presents two editions with identical content, produced in both a large and a small format.
BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
with Nicole Udry
Genius Loci, or the spirit of the place, refers to the unique identity or essence of a location. In architecture, this principle suggests that the specific characteristics of a place should be reflected and extended in a design. In the case of the second-year graphic design students, they have applied this principle to communication projects focused on promoting or extending the identity of a particular place through design. Their work likely explores how to visually capture and communicate the essence of a space, using graphic design elements that resonate with the architectural features or history of the place.
BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Anouk Schneider Agabekov, Nicolas Polli
As part of the magazine course led by Anouk Schneider and Emmanuel Crivelli, second-year Visual Communication students had the opportunity to design a magazine during the second semester. Students were encouraged to fully embrace their artistic freedom at every level of creation, whether in terms of format, paper choice, binding, layout, illustration, text, or typography. In this course, the magazine can take shape through various forms of illustration, such as photography, reproduction, contextualization, drawing, 3D, and more. The focus is placed on the author’s artistic vision and the means used to bring it to life. Students take on multiple roles as editor, curator, and architect, assuming the responsibilities of art director, designer, photographer, stylist, illustrator, typographer, editor-in-chief, and editorial secretary. This course highlights contemporary editorial design by exploring the narrative potential of a carefully crafted content sequence.