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ART DIRECTION

Messe

This photography book explores five Swiss fairs. The artificial textures, the objects and the stands are the heart of the project. Human beings are squashed by blurred, pixilated and scaled effects. The amount of pictures is huge and the layout is dense in order to give the reader a feeling of immersion into this artificial world, close to claustrophobia. In my life, I have really struggled between fascination with and rejection of this luxury world you can meet in Baselworld for example. And this diploma project was a way to explore that in a totally different manner.

ART DIRECTION

The everyday

During this Master, I have worked on two photography projects where I search for the illusion in everyday life versus a series of sets and objects I build in the studio. In my publication, I look for the boundary between a real and a fictional space. Where do these worlds meet and how do they interact with each other? From the boundaries of the real world to the carte blanche in the studio, this non-existent space is what interests me. In the process of building and making, I worked together with a set designer. As a still life photographer, this was an interesting collaboration and it gave me new ideas on props and set building. The technical process, the composition, the light, every item needs to be found from scratch and brought together in order to enhance the studio.

ART DIRECTION

Pícara

Pícara is a bookish text typeface, a tool for graphic designers, which draws its roots from 18th century Spanish type design. It’s a 12 cuts family. The 6 text cuts: Pícara Regular , Pícara Sans Regular have both their matching italic and bold. The 6 extravagant display cuts: Pícara Display , Stripes , Dual have their matching italic. This project allowed me to define my tastes, give personality to a shape, create a design with its own constraints, decide that the curves of the letters would be tight and the endings “cut with a knife”, giving the typeface a contemporary and digital texture.

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The Derby Club

My project is a small family of typefaces which tries to embed into a type design project the contrasted and idiosyncratic sides of football and its supporters, oscillating between two sides of the same coin. With the San Siro stadium as a frame, it becomes a snapshot of the relationship between the two extremes of the same audience, in form of a publication and a series of custom-made scarves. This research allowed me to grasp the importance of building a narrative platform that goes beyond the sum of its different parts: type, photography and installation.

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Bootycelli

Bootycelli is a one shot magazine focused on the body and beauty. It depicts a world without any rules or politics. Everything revolves around the ego. Narcissism, a growing value of our century, is treated in a humorous rather than a sanctimonious way. I learnt that outer beauty is the most important here.

ART DIRECTION

Alberto&Claudia

Alberto&Claudia is a type design project specifically aimed at the contemporary editorial scene. In recent years magazines rapidly evolved from physical products to real brands and services accessible throughout different media. More than ever they need strong identities. Alberto&Claudia started in order to meet this requirement. The project consists of four typefaces: Alberto Editor and Claudia Shouter for display and headline use; Claudia Columnist and Claudia Insider for bodytext and small sizes. The last two also include matching italics.

ART DIRECTION

Sarah Klein – Mamertus

by Sarah Klein

As a monospace family, Mamertus refers to the aesthetics and the social meaning of the typewriter. The family consists of three interchangeable cuts: serif regular, serif bold and sans regular. Further, a selection of alternative glyphs break from the rigid monospace grid and offer a more playful use of the font.

ART DIRECTION

Julia Andréone – Screen Magazine

by Julia Andréone

Screen is an independent magazine that offers its readers a moment of perspective on our daily behaviours towards screens. This first edition focuses on the study of space itself and the transformations screens generate around them. Writers, photographers and designers explore the link between the physical and the virtual space; the screen becomes a border, or an interface. This project was a good experience to understand every step of a magazine’s creation from design to production.

ART DIRECTION

Anna Bitzer –

by Anna Bitzer

Firefighter, astronaut, ballerina... What happened to your childhood dream? This book questions the whys and wherefores of what the so called Generation Y thinks about life, work and inspiration. How are we supposed to act? I spoke to 14 people from different backgrounds, with different ambitions and dreams on a linguistic and visual level. The answers are surprising, inspiring and simply frank. The whole publication uses "Oskar" a font family I drew especially for this project which is serious but special at the same time. When all this comes together you discover a complex collection of 14 different lifes in interviews and conversations.

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Katharina Tauer and Martina Vierthaler –

by Katharina Tauer and Martina Vierthaler

This work is a collaboration between a fashion designer and two graphic designers. The development of a visual identity includes the creation of a corporate typeface and the art direction of a photographical style. A major component of the project is a publication which works on one hand as a medium to feature the latest fashion collection and to introduce the designer, on the other hand it is an exploration and interpretation of sources of inspiration. It tells the stories behind the collection´s topics and creates a specific mood.

ART DIRECTION

Basile Mookherjee –

by Basile Mookherjee

My diploma project is a report on Dubaï inhabitants, examined through the lense of cars. Cars occupy an essential place in the lives of people from the United Arab Emirates; cities are stretched over several kilometres, with sixteen lanes highways cutting through the urban fabric, and it is not uncommon that one has to drive several hours daily to go work in another emirate. Cars being free of taxes, the competition to have the the most impressive car is fierce, and even extends to registration plates’ inscriptions. Cars are a way of showing who you are and what your social status is, but also a seduction tool in a society where it is forbidden to approach a woman directly, and wearing the traditional clothing – dishdash for men, abaya for women – is mandatory. I wanted to document the sudden modernization of the U.A.E, and its consequences on their ancient heritage fed by the nomadic and decorative cultures. Between desert dust and Gotham City, Islam and purchasing power.

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Prune Simon-Vermot –

by Prune Simon-Vermot

In 2010 I met my father for the first time at the age of 23. Besides the difficulty of imagining him as a father figure — since no images of him had accompanied me so far — a cultural and identity barrier was added, due to his Spanish roots. Yo soy de Las Vegas suggests Identity and Culture as mental structures. On the basis of this disorder, I developed a kind of dreamlike and metaphorical story. I tried to find a solution to create an imaginary and singular narration with the aim of reproducing these views of Spain.

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Yin-Fei Gwee –

by Yin-Fei Gwee

Transvercity/ 跨城市 is a typographic project about the cultural desire between the East and West. It is an investigation into why people dream of escaping to the other side of the world seeking for exoticism. People everywhere desire what they don't have. So why is the grass greener on the other side? Transvercity looks into this abstract representation of longing for distance phenomenon. Fexy Sans is a bilingual typeface designed for this project. The Latin version is unicase typeface inspired by the Chinese characters. This cross-cultural experiment is set to explore alternative identity of in-between world.

ART DIRECTION

Collection d'art de la Banque Cantonale Vaudoise

with François Rappo

A catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition “Contemporary… Is It? The BCV Art Collection”. It offers a look at the BCV art collection, a major player in the art scene in the canton of Vaud. Through the eye of photographers Michal Schorro Florence and Prune Simon Vermot, the reader is invited to discover the works in unusual contexts, ranging from workshops, meetings with artists, spaces of the banks, places of the artworks’ creation, to the status of art objects and collectibles. The visual essay provides a unique glimpse into the artistic creation in the canton of Vaud and the active support of the BCV. It is thus, by its content and by the point of view of photographers, a reference light on the artist’s life here and now. In addition to the two photographers, the graphic design and realization of the catalogue was coordinated by Katharina Tauer and Simon Ladoux, students of the Master Art Direction, supervised and guided by François Rappo, Anouk Dulguerov, Robert Huber and Alexis Georgacopoulos. Published by BCV and co-published with the Hermitage Foundation, the exhibition catalogue is prefaced by Sylvie Wuhrmann, Director of Fondation de l’Hermitage, and Olivier Steimer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the BCV and President of the Commission of the art collection BCV. It brings together contributions from Jean-Paul Felley and Olivier Kaeser, co-directors of the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris, and Catherine Girard-Othenin, curator of the art collection BCV and curator of the exhibition.

ART DIRECTION

Jennifer Niederhauser Schlup – La Vallée

by Jennifer Niederhauser Schlup

“My project has for theme the Vallée de Joux and its relationship with the watch industry. I have photographed the various aspects of the place, showing them from an unusual perspective. The photographs are manipulated, retouched and set up in order to create a fabricated reality and disturb the spectator. Presented along with a display, this project takes the form of a book. The whole becomes a fictional study. The hardest for me was to meet the inhabitants, the Combiers. My personal approach of the subject has allowed me to improve my technical skills. Some images required a particular setup. Having conducted this project over a long period of time, I have learned perseverance and to keep challenging my vision at all times.” Jennifer Niederhauser Schlup

ART DIRECTION

Florine Bonaventure – Adventice 01 — An Issue About Architecture and Nature

by Florine Bonaventure

“Adventice is an editorial project which concentrates on the confrontation of different topics, highlighting the tension between conflicting subjects. Each issue focuses on a specific matter. Authors such as writers, photographers, designers and biologists explore the given theme. Adventice 01 is centered on the parallel between nature and industry and was published with a print run of 1000 copies. Three fonts were specifically drawn for this issue. Although we worked with many people during the entire process, we had to take different roles. We were in turn: author, editor, graphic designer, type designer, translator, lithographer, etc. In addition to being a great human adventure, Adventice introduced us to the real world of production.” Florine Bonaventure

ART DIRECTION

Luke Archer – Terrazzo Project

by Luke Archer

The Terrazzo Project is a furniture design company started by two ex-ECAL students, working with a particular stone material; terrazzo (a mixture of cement and marble). Starting as a collaboration with the Terrazzo Project , this work is a research into materials and processes within graphic design, type design and art direction. It investigates ways to develop a visual identity with reference to the use of specific materials. This involves printing experimentation with the stone to capture the surface and texture of the material and translate it into a graphic medium, a corporate typeface, with a special CNC cut, presented as a stone type specimen, and a photographic style.

ART DIRECTION

Philippe Karrer – Spheres

by Philippe Karrer

The publication Spheres  is the creative documentation of a close collaboration between an artist and the editor, graphic designer Philippe Karrer. Every issue is dedicated to a young artist and their work, in each case exploring character, surroundings, everyday life, inspirations and ideas using unconventional innovative formats so as to create a different, more visual approach and understanding of the artist and their work. The focus lies on what is important to the artist during the period of collaboration for the publication, hereby capturing a certain essence of the artist’s work at that time. Not only can the reader dive in to the artist’s world, receiving small personal snippets of the life in and around their art, but also (and perhaps even more importantly) the way in which the artist chooses to present things in the publication gives the reader an idea of the artist’s whole artistic sphere. For this first issue of Spheres , Philippe Karrer invited Dutch artist Melanie Bonajo to present herself and her work. An image archive to show Bonajo’s inspirations, a visual interview as a dialogue between editor and artist and text contributions by Annelies Blijveld, Jaimey Hamilton and Joël Vacheron make up this first issue of Spheres. spheres-publication.ch

ART DIRECTION

Guillaume Collignon – Flight Launching Monuments

by Guillaume Collignon

Complex and monumental, ski jumps are constructions that have a strong impact on their landscape and their environment. Although ski jumping is practiced only by a few people, its architecture requires a significant investment. Sometimes architectural monuments and prestigious showcases, sometimes relics of a past glory, I was interested in these architectural “UFOs”, wanting them to be not completely revealed, leaving room for imagination. If the strangeness of these constructions amazes the public and transformed the landscape, their rise and fall raises many questions about sports and the Olympics…

ART DIRECTION

Matthew Fenton & Haakon Spencer – Verities 01

by Matthew Fenton & Haakon Spencer

Verities is an independent biannual publication of thought, observation and reflection, giving equal focus to visual arts and literature. Verities explores new ways of seeing the most ordinary and overlooked situations, revealing the arresting and irrational in the everyday. The ability to disorient and estrange through a subjects illumination makes for a potentially explosive catalyst that sits at the heart of Verities. In each issue artists and authors explore a new theme through artworks, photography, design, fashion, essays and short stories. Finding the new in the old and celebrating the old in the new, rescuing beauty from vulgarity, and pushing social issues to the fore. Verities makes intellectual content accessible, yet is not afraid to challenge its readers. Based in London with an international outlook this is a publication that is subjective in its authorship and honest in its approach. Taking on the mantle of producing a publication for the ultra observant. verities.co.uk

ART DIRECTION

Nicolas Haeni – Four Corners

by Nicolas Haeni

“ I decided to create an “architectural” publication. My rational is to reclaim the word architecture from within the realms of professional discourse, and examine its juxtaposition between this and everyday life. So I developed short series of visual experiments which interested me. The result is a publication that takes an alternative look at architecture and the everyday. ” Nicolas Haeni

ART DIRECTION

David Favrod – Gaijin

by David Favrod

“I usually find it hard to speak about myself. I always stumble in the paradoxes of 'who am I?'. In terms of factual information, I surely appear to be the most well informed person about my own self. But as soon as I need to communicate about who I am, I tend to do it through filters, selecting what I want to communicate, and how I wish to do it, in accordance with my interests and sensitivity. So what can be the objective value of the way that I picture my family and my life? How much does it concretely relates to reality or not? 'Gaijin' is the japanese word meaning 'the foreigner'.” David Favrod

ART DIRECTION

Matthieu Lavanchy & Jonas Marguet – Les sentiments positivés

by Matthieu Lavanchy & Jonas Marguet

At the beginning of the last century, when health tourism made ​​its appearance in the Alps, Dr. Bach developed a series of essences made ​​from flowers supposed to deal with different emotional states. Negative feelings such as invasive and unwanted thoughts, feelings of being overwhelmed, fear of failing or difficulty saying no were corrected by the absorption of these subtle remedies. Bach claimed all he had to do was eat a flower or taste a petal to intuitively know its ‘personality’ and its therapeutic qualities. Inspired by the myth of the “lone scholar” and a certain idea of ​​well-being, and Matthew Lavanchy and Jonas Marguet present a humorous, fantasical and candid report of man to his ills.

ART DIRECTION

Louise Paradis – TM SGM RSI 1965-1985

by Louise Paradis

“The Typographische Monatsblätter” has enjoyed a long life, or rather many different lives. Established more than 70 years ago, the magazine has witnessed very important moments in the history of typography and graphic design. It made ‘Swiss Design’ known to an international readership and later spread the burgeoning ideas of the ‘New Wave’ style. This work attempts to give an overview of a critical period; the transition between modernism and postmodernism or should I say, the development of a growing reaction against modernism. Through an investigation of the covers designed between the years 1965 until 1985, this work is trying to make an objective representation of that era. The covers were a prominent aspect of “The Typographische Monatsblätter”, they provide a good indication of attitude and aesthetic concerns of the time. The designers of these covers are presented through biographies, interviews and excerpts discussing their thoughts and ideas. tm-research-archive.ch