MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Valerio Meschi
During the Realtime Narratives course, second-year students had to create a real-time narrative experience using Unreal Engine software. The aim of the project was to raise students awareness of the use of 3D realtime engines and the various links with other software specific to each stage of development.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Harry Bloch
Websites developed over a semester according to a book chosen by the students as part of Harry Bloch's Screen Design course, second year Bachelor of Visual Communication.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Harriet Davey
Who are you in the digital realm? Your avatar, your videogame skin, your alter ego. Second-year students, led by Harriet Davey, crafted digital alter egos from scratch. They used Daz, Blender, and VR to explore an alternate personality or expression through the digital self.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Pauline Saglio
Folklore Fusion – a CGI character project developed by students in Bachelor Media & Interaction Design at ECAL, exploring the creative collision between Japanese and Swiss folklore through the lens of contemporary visual storytelling.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier, Pauline Saglio, Calypso Mahieu
During the Service Design course, the 3rd year of the Graphic Design, Photography and Media & Interaction Design bachelors had to create multi-media projects. A collaboration of the Visual Communication department which had as subject the SDGs (*Sustainable Development Goals). The theme was called "For a good cause, make the SDGs a reality" and its objective was to allow students to develop a cause that is close to their hearts. Each project consists of at least two different media, one primary and one secondary. These projects could take any form that the students deemed relevant, be it a website, editions, posters, a video sequence or virtual reality.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Vincent Veillon, Paul Walther, Florian Pittet (Sigmasix), Vincent Jacquier, Julien Gurtner
During an intensive week, first-year students from the Visual Communication department at ECAL had the opportunity to create and produce the first edition of ECAL Night Live. The goal was to design a show inspired by satirical television formats. Divided into multidisciplinary teams—including students from the Bachelor programs in Graphic Design, Media & Interaction Design, and Photography—they collaborated to create all the content, set design, and visual identity of the show, delivering a fully homemade project in record time. The main theme revolved around self-mockery, targeting the visual communication professions, students, and the institution itself, with a subtle touch of current events. This project was supervised by Vincent Veillon and Paul Walther, directors of the RTS show 52 Minutes, as well as Florian Pittet, a digital scenography expert who guided the creation of the show's set design.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier
From March 10 to 14, ECAL is taking part in Digital Cleanup Week, a worldwide event dedicated to raising awareness and taking action for a more responsible digital world. A week to repair, recycle, clean and think!
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Giliane Cachin
As part of the course given by Giliane Cachin, 1st year students are required to produce an edition by examining the different axes that make it up. The course offers a study of various grid systems and the fundamentals of micro-typography. During the semester, students will look for the best way to structure and arrange the content they have chosen (or which has been assigned to them, depending on the semester's data). Some essential rules to know in terms of printing and bindings will be reviewed at the end of the semester, in order to bring the conceptualized object to life.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Kylan Luginbühl
Video sequences created as part of the 3D Graphics course, led by Kylan Luginbühl. The videos interpret the theme Tease & Reveal. Whether for a movie, a series, a product, or a video game, the teaser sparks our curiosity and invites us to engage with the subject in just a few seconds. Projects created during the 1st year of the Bachelor in Media & Interaction Design.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Angelo Benedetto
It’s about time is a series of digital clocks that explore the perception of time through different hierarchies of representation. This selection brings together projects created in the first year of the Bachelor in Media & Interaction, as part of the Dynamic Display course led by Angelo Benedetto.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Kushagra Gupta
Third-year students in Media & Interaction Design created posters depicting insects whose appearance is inspired by their evolutionary adaptation to their environment. This week-long workshop was led by artist Kushagra Gupta.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Mario Von Rickenbach
The students worked on an interactive countdown in a web environment. Each day, they were tasked with creating a new sketch, culminating in their own collection, which could also be combined with projects from the entire class.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Gaël Hugo
During this workshop, second year media & Interaction design students crafted interactive 'wonder-rooms' inspired by curiosity cabinets, blending 3D environments with real-time interactions. A collection of bizarre, imaginative little worlds to be explored.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Nicole Ruggiero
Guided by New-York based 3D arist Nicole Ruggiero, the first year students brought their most impactful digital memories to life. Using Cinema4D, ZBrush, and Substance Painter, they crafted animations exploring how technology has shaped our experiences through nostalgic tributes.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Angelo Benedetto
Beyond the screen - is a series of interactive machines developed by students in their first year of Bachelor Media & Interaction Design. These systems are inspired by the relationship between instructions and execution within a computer system. These machines create text through a modular typographic system.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Sébastien Matos
A collection of interface buttons designed and animated by first-year students of the Bachelor’s program in Media & Interaction Design. Each element includes a standard animation, an exaggerated animation, and an unexpected version.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Jack McVeigh
A one week workshop where the first-year students were taught the basics of Blender and how to achieve a similar visual language to that of early era video game graphics. Students were asked to create a looping animation or 'Story' from the perspective of a character in the city of Renens where ECAL is based. These were then packaged into a playable game displayed on a series of CRT monitors controlled using a PS1 controller. The game itself was completely run in Blender using Geometry Nodes & Python.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Gary Sandoz
By delegating our life experiences to digital media processed by algorithms, memory is no longer solely human. Reminix explores the emotional dimension and the future of our fragmented memories through a device that scans and analyzes photographic slides, acting as an ephemeral backup of a past life in the absence of the author's testimony. In a spatial contemplation, the image materialized and rendered in 3D, accompanied by generative narration, reconstitutes an alternative past with each activation. This interactive experience reactivates the memory and creates a bridge between the user and the narrative potential of the image, while questioning the fragility, preservation, trust, and generation of our memories by machines.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Théo Déchanez
Vulcan is an immersive journey to the heart of telluric powers. It is a tribute to volcanologists and volcanoes, exploring themes such as human smallness and the fascination of the immensity of natural forces. Divided into two parts, the narrative opposes the vision of a volcanologist getting as close as possible to a crater, to that of the god of fire, forges and volcanoes, the eponym of the experience. Vulcan is inspired by the work of Haroun Tazieff and the couple Katia and Maurice Krafft, and is an extension of a reflection begun during my thesis on the reconstruction of myths using digital tools.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Julie Turin
Assembly line work and online orders have become the norm, even in craftsmanship. The Star's Bags app is a seamstress's response to this trend, offering an immersive shopping experience to highlight manual labor before the customer receives their bag. "The Tree Bag" is the first collection from this app, which can expand into other themes. Through this experience, the customer participates in every step of the bag's creation over several days: gathering materials, placing patterns, cutting, sewing, pinning, addressing, and shipping. By following this process, the customer appreciates the effort involved and retains a special memory of their purchase, enhancing the value of the product received.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Emma Grosu
Video games allow players to escape into narrative worlds where they hold ‘all the power.’ In ESC, the game's character seeks to escape his own reality. This reversal examines the notions of freedom and constraint in video games, ironically highlighting the limits of our existence. What would happen if a character became aware of their situation, realizing that they are not in control of their movements but are, instead, imprisoned by them? ESC allowed me to explore concepts of immersion such as breaking the fourth wall and mise en abyme. Inspired by works like ‘The Truman Show’ and ‘Sword Art Online,’ I illustrated how the perception of freedom can be an illusion, both in video games and in the physical world.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Viktor Gagné
The weight of materials produced by humans is now believed to exceed that of all terrestrial biomass. How will these artifacts integrate into the rest of the environment in a million years? Serialized Saplings is an interactive installation that speculates on a potential form of vegetation to come, heavily altered by the excesses of human production, here crystallized through the symbol of the electrical outlet. By manipulating the connections of several power strips, the participant is invited to program the "genetic code" of hybrid plant species that do not yet exist and whose appearance resembles our industrial standards. This generated vegetation is then classified in the form of a digital herbarium that can be consulted and studied.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Isaïa Delaplace
Azimut is a puzzle game set in a 3D natural environment. The aim is to solve a series of riddles linked to the position of the sun in the sky. Inspired by the theme of Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's book “In Praise of Shadows”, controlling the sun becomes the central element of the gameplay. This action allows players to simply interact with the light that illuminates the Earth, solving puzzles and progressing through the experience. Through this series of increasingly complex puzzles, we can observe and feel the beauty of light and shadow in an increasingly vivid and rich environment.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Charlotte Pralong
Have you ever wanted to be part of the show at the concert you are attending? This is where the Take Part project comes in, an interactive scenography for a song specially composed by my musical duo with my sister. The phone, often seen as a disturbing intermediary between artists and the audience, is here used as a tool for connection that strengthens bonds and amplifies collective energy. Indeed, each spectator participates in the projection behind the musicians using their phone. The audience follows a character with a naïve style, animated in 2D, who travels through various worlds to recharge before finally sharing this energy, symbolizing the sharing and multiplication of collective joy.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Odran Jobin
What Lies Behind is an immersive virtual reality experience dealing with the disproportionate scales that separate us from the immense and the minuscule. This project is based around a philosophical and personal thought; it is difficult, as human beings, to define ourselves when faced with the idea that the immense and the minuscule come together in complexities and scales that escape our perception. This experiment takes us on a journey through these scales. The aim is not to explain, but to marvel at the beauty of the inexplicable. Seated on a bench, we are led through various scenes, each gradually altering our perception of space.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Alexandre Gambarini
Whether it's the legend of Joan of Arc, William Tell, Che Guevara or other emblematic figures, our societies and our daily lives are partly punctuated by these tales. Echoes from the Tales is an interactive sequence that traces the life of Vasil Levski, a Bulgarian icon. By listening to his story, punctuated by strong symbolism, the sequence enables us to grasp how these stories can shape individual and collective identity. The aim of this interactive sequence is to analyze how a story can be assimilated and transformed by the individual imagination and then passed on, as well as understanding how age-old narratives such as Vasil Levski's can be hijacked by modern storytelling.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Sasha Iatsenia
Today, 1 in 15 children are affected by a disorder that alters their behaviors, impacting their educational, socialization, and communication skills. LittleCubes were designed as therapeutic toys to help develop these skills through light and play. Using a cube that lights up and responds to natural gestures, therapists can create fun and engaging exercises using an intuitive app. While designing this project, I discovered that I have autistic traits, inspiring me to build a toy I would have loved as a child. My goal is to build bridges between neurotypical and neurodiverse experiences, making the world more inclusive for all. To date, I have tested the cube with more than 15 therapists and 30 children (ASD, motor deficiencies and associated disorders). I hope to continue this project after my diploma. This project is supported by Fondation Dr Combe.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Jérémie Kursner
iLand Universe is a project focused on the world of amusement parks where every activity is an allusion to the digital world, whether through its architecture, its scenography, or its references to the overuse of smartphones. Through an "epic" teaser, this project adopts the promotional codes of a traditional amusement park, using video as the main communication tool while playing with the "inspiring" codes of this industry from the United States. The desire to create this fantastic world stems from my passion for this universe, as well as my interest in metaphorizing digital visions into tangible concepts, thus creating mind games that continuously question the digital society in which we live.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Marius Parisod
At the crossroads between video games and board games, Get-Out 4 is an invitation to rediscover the joy of playing together. This puzzle game, designed to be played by two or more players, encourages direct interaction and cooperation. The use of external game pieces invites players to rely on their observation and deduction skills, bringing them together in a shared experience that goes beyond screens. The design of Get-Out 4 is based on a minimalist aesthetic inspired by early video games such as Pong, Pac-Man, and Tetris. This visual simplicity not only evokes nostalgia but is strategically employed to enhance player engagement by focusing on gameplay mechanics. This project, beyond its playful aspect, offers human interaction through the lens of gaming.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Mélanie Martin
Odalys is an artificial intelligence that takes the shape of a glowing doll. She is designed to respond to her owner's every wish at the touch of a button. However, she needs to be setup in a multiple ended narration where the user's choices irreversibly affect the trajectory of their relationship.The intention of the project is to expose the potential consequences of our interactions with generative AIs. The experiment also aims to highlights the over-representation of female shells to sell these products. Odalys is not a woman-object, she is the object of the system to which the user submits her. And she objects it.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Sami Benhadj
Clips produced as part of the Sequence course supervised by Sami Benhadj. Second-year students from the Bachelor's programs in Graphic Design and Media & Interaction Design each created a music video. Each project brings an existing piece of music to life, exploring visual storytelling, rhythm, and the creation of a unique graphic universe.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Anouk Schneider Agabekov, Chi-Long Trieu
As part of the publishing course led by Anouk Schneider and Chi-Long Trieu, 2nd year Visual Communication students had the opportunity to design an artist's book during the first semester. This book project stands out for its contemporary approach aimed at creating an editorial object that harmoniously integrates form and content in the current context of the editorial landscape. Students were encouraged to exploit their artistic freedom at all levels of creation, whether in terms of format, choice of paper, binding, layout, illustrations, text or typography. As part of this course, the artist's book can take shape through various illustration modalities, such as photography, reproduction, contextualization, drawing, 3D, etc. The emphasis is on the author's artistic vision and the means implemented to realize it. Students take on multiple roles as editor, curator and architect, covering the responsibilities of artistic 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 sequence of controlled content.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Giliane Cachin
As part of the course given by Giliane Cachin, 1st year students are required to produce an edition by examining the different axes that make it up. The course offers a study of various grid systems and the fundamentals of micro-typography. During the semester, students will look for the best way to structure and arrange the content they have chosen (or which has been assigned to them, depending on the semester's data). Some essential rules to know in terms of printing and bindings will be reviewed at the end of the semester, in order to bring the conceptualized object to life.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier, Pauline Saglio, Calypso Mahieu
During the Service Design course, the 3rd year of the Graphic Design, Photography and Media & Interaction Design bachelors had to create multi-media projects. A collaboration of the Visual Communication department which had as subject the SDGs (*Sustainable Development Goals). The theme was called "For a good cause, make the SDGs a reality" and its objective was to allow students to develop a cause that is close to their hearts. Each project consists of at least two different media, one primary and one secondary. These projects could take any form that the students deemed relevant, be it a website, editions, posters, a video sequence or virtual reality.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Alain Bellet
REMIND ME I'M ALIVE is a companion that combines the functions of a fidget toy with those of a personal reminder. The gadget uses information on Wifi connections in its immediate vicinity to better understand the user's environment. By examining these connections - the only gateway to the outside world - the gadget can tell whether the user is in a busy or quiet environment, and even give indications of possible stressful situations. When the user is not interacting with the device, it constantly monitors his or her status via the surrounding wifi connections. These connections provide implicit information on social conditions, working environments, infrastructures and much more. If the user does not communicate with the companion for more than six hours, it “dies” and must be resuscitated. This feature underlines the need for regular interaction and ensures that the companion is always ready for use.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
by Thomas Gaudin, Olivia Capol, Livia Schmid, Emilie Maier
This project revolves around a fully functional data visualization experience and graphical interface, designed and programmed by second-year Bachelor students in Media & Interaction Design as part of a course taught by Gaël Hugo. This exercise begins with the following reflection: "Fun" datasets concern topics that are of personal interest, and can be used to answer unexpected questions and explore relationships that aren’t immediately intuitive. Perhaps you start with a question or hypothesis, and then find a dataset to prove (or disprove) your theory. Or, you might even generate your own dataset using web scraping techniques or an open API. In fact, creating your own dataset enables you to collect, label, and prepare a clean dataset. - Kindra Coope
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Gaël Hugo
Soundtoys coded by 1st year Bachelor students in Media & Interaction Design as part of a semester project led by Gaël Hugo.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Angelo Benedetto
First-year students explored the creation of dynamic identities for fictional places. This project, part of the Dynamic Display course led by Angelo Benedetto, challenged them to imagine graphic universes reflecting the essence of each invented location.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
PHOTOGRAPHY
with Charlotte Krieger, Jean-Vincent Simonet, Florian Pittet (Sigmasix), Vincent Jacquier, Julien Gurtner, Matthieu Minguet, Cédric Duchêne, EPFL+ECAL Lab, Giacomo Bastianelli
For a week, the first-year visual communications students worked on an installation consisting of 15 screens, accompanied by a 360° sound system developed by EPFL+ECAL Lab. This chandelier, five metres in diameter and suspended from a height of three metres, served as a support for their experiments. Using music specially composed and spatialised for the occasion, the students explored the dynamics of sound both visually and in movement.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Matthieu Minguet
Agents Are All You Need is the result of a one-week workshop dedicated to exploring Autonomous Agents and their potential in innovative scenarios. By repurposing existing platforms, students leveraged the reasoning capabilities of multimodal language models to automate complex actions rather than limiting themselves to generating text or images.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Alain Bellet, Mario Von Rickenbach
Using a mixed reality headset, the students used their surroundings as playground. Through creative gestures, each experiment proposes a way of interacting with the environment.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Vera van de Seyp
How does our physical body interact with digital content ? The students have explored creative ways in which typography and graphics can be manipulated in response to human movement.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Alain Bellet
Talk To Me is a series of interactive objects designed by first-year students in the Bachelor Media & Interaction Design program. These creations use dialogue as a playground, drawing inspiration from conversational interfaces to create new forms of interaction.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Alain Bellet
Fictional mobile apps based on the "Much Faster / Much Slower" theme, offering new ways of consulting, communicating, creating, playing, discovering and learning. Students in their 2nd year of Bachelor Media & Interaction Design designed a dedicated experience and graphic interface via interactive prototypes on Figma.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Angelo Benedetto
Digital clocks with no temporal reference points, simple representations of the passage of time. Developed on the principle of screensavers, these projects are programmed to evolve graphically according to the time of day. Selection of projects created in the first-year Bachelor Media & Interaction Dynamic Display course with Angelo Benedetto, assisted by Sébastien Matos.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Kylan Luginbühl
Video sequences realised during the 3D Graphics course led by Kylan Luginbühl. The videos interpret the From A to B theme, a direct exploration of the passage from one state to another. Projects realised during the 1st year Bachelor Media & Interaction Design.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Angelo Benedetto, Vincent Jacquier
The Clean Up Digital Week takes over ECAL from March 11 to 15. Throughout the week, discover five different visual communication campaigns created by students from the Bachelor in Graphic Design and the Bachelor in Media & Interaction Design. These campaigns aim to raise awareness and encourage everyone to adopt responsible digital practices—starting now—with simple everyday actions.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Cyril Diagne
CAN THEY DANCE? is the result of a week-long workshop centered around the concept of Large Action Models (LAM). By repurposing existing platforms, the students leveraged the reasoning capabilities of these artificial intelligence models (LLM).
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Elodie Anglade
Selection of animated sequences made during a 3D course directed by Elodie Anglade. The students were inspired by a painting and transcribed it into three different scenes.
MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN
with Valerio Meschi
During the Realtime Narratives course, second-year students had to create a real-time narrative experience using Unreal Engine software. The aim of the project was to raise students awareness of the use of 3D realtime engines and the various links with other software specific to each stage of development.