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PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop - Rachel de Joode - 2026

with Rachel de Joode, Clément Lambelet

For this workshop, ECAL invited Rachel de Joode, Berlin-based artist whose practice explores the relationship between photography, sculpture, and digital images. During the week, students experimented with transforming photographic images into three-dimensional forms. Starting from simple concepts, they produced or gathered image material intended for printing and treated images as surfaces to cut, fold, layer, and assemble into sculptural objects. Through rapid tests and material experimentation, the workshop encouraged students to move repeatedly between image, surface, object, and documentation. By working with printing, scale, and spatial placement, they explored how photographic images can gain physical presence and occupy space beyond the screen.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Visual Identity – BA2 S1 2025

with Adeline Mollard

As part of the visual identity course led by Adeline Mollard, students developed a visual identity starting from a randomly selected business card. By appropriating one of its graphic elements and its title, each project offers a unique interpretation. The identity is then expanded across a range of formats, from business cards to F4 posters, including posters, flyers, business cards, and an animated poster.

FILM STUDIES

Workshop Shitty Rigs

Workshop led by Michael William Farino, Jonathan Ricardo Argudo and Herbert Mayer and given to students in the Bachelor's degree programmes in Cinema and Industrial Design.

DIGITAL EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Reality Check – 2025

with Emily Groves, Margherita Motta

Reality Check is a hands-on course that applies the theoretical foundations of the Human Lens module through real-world qualitative research and transforming insights into concrete design proposals. Students reimagined the human experience of digital services. Engaging with real people through interviews, diary studies and other research methods, they defined and prototyped new directions for existing services that bring meaningful experience to the fore.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop - Simone C Niquille - 2025

with Simone Niquille, Milo Keller, Clément Lambelet

For this workshop, ECAL invited  Simone C Niquille, a Vienna-based visual artist whose interdisciplinary practice spans photography, 3D rendering, AI-generated imagery, lens-based paintings, and sculptures. Social media algorithms manipulate memory and emotions by trapping users in echo chambers of repetitive imagery and ideas. These visual cycles exploit memory processes, triggering emotional responses—such as fear, envy, or desire—that reinforce behavioral patterns. Corporations leverage photographic images to target insecurities, activating primal instincts to drive consumption and engagement. Before the workshop, students were invited to reflect on their personal echo chambers—encountered on their social media feeds. They were asked to think about the following: •    What trends or niches were suggested to you? •    Which emotions played a role in these trends? •    What emotional responses did they trigger in you? By analyzing these patterns, students gained insight into how photographic images and algorithms influence memory, emotions, and behavior. This critical awareness serveed as a foundation for exploring the broader societal implications of visual media.

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL at OFFPRINT Paris 2025

with Bruno Ceschel, Nicolas Polli, Milo Keller, Clément Lambelet

During Paris Photo 2025, ECAL will present a selection of its books at OFFPRINT Paris. ECAL Master Photography is pleased to present a selection of books created by its second-year students. This event offers an opportunity to engage live with the young photographers, exploring the origins of their projects and the stories behind each of these publications.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Toggle - 2025

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. https://toggle.ecal-mid.ch/2025

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL x Moncler

with Philippe Jarrigeon

Drawing on Moncler’s Alpine heritage, its timeless style, and its technical mastery, the ECAL Bachelor Photography students developed their own interpretation of the brand’s visual language, blending documentary photography with staged scenes, and merging reality with fiction, under the artistic direction of French photographer Philippe Jarrigeon. As part of Paris Photo 2025, the students’ work was showcased at the Moncler boutique on the Champs-Élysées.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

LET THE DATASET CHANGE YOUR MINDSET - 2025

by Steve Bouillant, Teo Grajqevci, Yann Müller

Data has the power to reshape the way we interpret the world. Starting from a simple question or hypothesis, this project explores how visualization can reveal patterns that are not immediately visible. The result is a fully functional data visualization experience with an interactive interface, including a mobile controller that allows users to manipulate the display in real time. Designed and programmed by second-year Bachelor students in Media & Interaction Design as part of a course taught by Gaël Hugo, the project demonstrates how interactive visualization can make complex data more accessible and engaging.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Dynamic Identity - 2025

with Angelo Benedetto

First-year students designed visual identities for fictional museums. As part of the Dynamic Display course led by Angelo Benedetto, this project led them to create graphic universes that that express the character of each imaginary exhibition site.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Genius Loci - Spirit of the place

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.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Type Design BA1 S1 2024/2025

with Robert Huber

Designing a logotype means defining a strong visual identity anchored in a specific context. First-year Graphic Design students developed a hand-drawn logotype based on a subject, theme, or environment of their own choosing. This creation was informed by prior research in typographic archives. Each student produced a reference booklet and a specimen system based on six or more typefaces, to ground their visual and conceptual exploration. Balancing typographic culture and contemporary expression, each project investigates what makes a visual identity truly distinctive.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Information Design

with Angelo Benedetto

During the information design course the students of the second year have been asked to design a cartographic poster based on a film in the road movie genre, in a direct or abstract representation.

FILM STUDIES

Documentary film workshop with Alessandro Comodin

with Alessandro Comodin

The 2025 documentary film workshop for 2nd year students was lead by french italian director Alessandro Comodin.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Type Design BA2 S2 2024 - 2025

with Aurèle Sack

The second-year students had to vectorize a typeface they had drawn last semester.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Editorial Design BA2 S2 2024 - 2025

with Diego Bontognali

Development of an editorial system deployed across three publication formats, centered on the theme of prohibition.

FILM STUDIES

Documentary film workshop with Benoit Rossel

with Benoit Rossel

The 2025 documentary film workshop for 1st year students was lead by french swiss director Benoit Rossel.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Fine Art Photography

with Natacha Lesueur

Documenteur – The Power of the Fake Based on projects developed around a common theme, students create a personal and in-depth body of work exploring the notion of deception. They build a project that plays with the boundaries of photographic truth, using the medium as an artifice of lies.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographic Essays

with Matthieu Gafsou

This year's “Documentary Practices” course is devoted to a territory that is very close to us and, in a way for most of us, very far away: the countryside. For a city-dweller, the countryside is an out-of-town territory where you can go for a walk, where there are farmers, fields and forests. Recent votes in Switzerland testify to a considerable widening of the gap between town and country: the far right would be the place of rurality, while the left would be urban. This territory is not only topologically different from the city, but also seems to be inhabited by people whose lifestyles and thinking are at odds with the city. The reality, however, is obviously more complex and resists such simplification.