GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Service Design - 2025

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.

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL × SDOL, Horizon Ouest, Regards sur la métamorphose urbaine

with Matthieu Gafsou

New transport infrastructure is emerging, while former industrial wastelands are giving way to modern buildings and redesigned outdoor spaces. Gradually, residents are moving into these new neighborhoods and adopting new habits.  To capture the first moments of life in these spaces, the association "Ouest lausannois: Prix Wakker 2011" has invited second-year students from the ECAL Bachelor of Photography program to observe them throughout 2024. This project highlights 18 ongoing construction sites or recently completed neighborhoods. Through their perspectives, the students offer original approaches to discovering, understanding, and appropriating these new spaces.  Photography maintains a unique relationship with the world around us, as it often depends on it. Far from merely documenting reality in a strict sense, it has the power to transfigure and reveal the invisible or the unspeakable. This is the approach adopted by the ECAL photography students at the request of the "Ouest lausannois: Prix Wakker 2011" association, as they explored various territories in western Lausanne. As part of this commission, each student was randomly assigned a specific location—be it a new neighborhood, a construction site, or a distinctive building—on which they worked over an academic year. Faced with spaces that were sometimes unphotogenic or even resistant to imagery, the challenge was to look beyond appearances, to resonate with these places in order to grasp their unique dynamics. The photographs question our perception of these recent landscapes and bear witness to the human activity unfolding within them. What do they reveal about our ways of living and moving? Who are the people inhabiting these spaces? What new landscapes emerge from these rapid transformations?  Through approaches that are sometimes sensitive and intimate, sometimes detached and analytical, or even driven by a formal fascination with the objects captured, the works presented reveal the density and diversity of everyday life. They bring forth a poetic vision of the city, inviting us to consider these territories not merely as functional backdrops but as fully-fledged spaces, rich with history, form, and identity—fluid and multifaceted, just like those who inhabit them.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Fine Art Photography

with Natacha Lesueur

Last minute risk As the students enter their final year of training at the ECAL, and their interests and methods take shape, it's time to take advantage of this last project to question our own rules, achievements and influences, not to be satisfied with them, and to take risks.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Dramatic portraiture

with Louie Banks

Returning to the basics and origins of photography will allow students to focus their energy and ideas meaningfully on their concept and subject.   Louie Banks provided them with three keywords to consider as a way to create photographs with more impact than what is typically expected from today’s editorials and campaigns. The students were free to draw inspiration from one of the following keywords or to try incorporating a bit of each into their project: "Movement," "Costume," "Emotion."

PHOTOGRAPHY

BURNING CORSO - Thomas Mailaender

with Thomas Mailaender

In the spring of 2024, Thomas Mailaender and the students of the ECAL Bachelor in Photography entered the ruins of the club with the intention of making it resonate once again. Between archaeology, documentary research, and imaginative speculations, the group of adventurers crafted a surprising exhibition path blending mold and glitter, ashes and glamour. For one night, the Corso was filled with explosive sounds and images in a fiery tribute to the nights of Renens.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Pratique photographique

with Maxime Guyon

"Extraordinary Daily Commodities": Everyday Objects What if the objects around us were not mere tools, but autonomous entities with their own essence? Inspired by Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), this semester invited students to explore objects from a fresh perspective. Freed from the shadow of our consciousness, they take a place equal to that of humans, animals, and plants. Guided by Maxime Guyon, second-year photography students were encouraged to rediscover what "banal" truly means and dive into a reflection on the place and sensitivity of objects in the contemporary world.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Blue jeans

with Philippe Jarrigeon, Philippe Jarrigeon

This year, a unique workshop invited students to explore the relationship between an object and its image. By delving into the material properties, history, symbolism, and multiple representations of an iconic object, they sought to understand the aura that defines it. The subject of this first edition? The blue jean. From a simple utilitarian garment to a global symbol of style, the blue jean transcends generations and cultures. Throughout the semester, students were tasked with creating a photographic project or video that both questions and celebrates this emblematic object.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop with Lorenzo Vitturi

with Lorenzo Vitturi

The aim of this workshop is to engage students in a multidisciplinary process that combines photography with sculpture and scenography. To emphasize the importance of the creative process, students are encouraged to use primarily collected and recycled materials, which will need to be transformed and integrated into their visual narrative. The work presented at the end of the workshop will reflect this approach, combining visual results with sculptures and ephemeral installations.

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL × JEAN PAUL GAULTIER: SPORT - CORPS

with Florence Tétier, Nicolas Coulomb

SPORT - CORPS : Jeux Olympiques et Paralympiques The project is based on the theme of the body, with a view to staging physical effort.  The recent context of the Olympic and Paralympic Games logically frames the choice of sport as an aesthetic means of highlighting different forms of bodily expression. The choice of discipline could be classic, out-of-games or even imaginary. The students worked around a certain vision of physical effort, movement, constraint, a form of discipline, or even joy.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Fine Art Photography

with Laurence Bonvin

Liquid Times Produce a project using photography and video on the theme of fluidity, liquid form and water.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Le livre d’artiste - 23/24

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.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Staged Photography

with Charlotte Krieger

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the creation and management of a complex photographic project involving sets, characters and lighting. The theme is free.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Fine Art Photography

with Natacha Lesueur

Seduce, they said Based on projects developed around the theme of seduction, students develop a personal, in-depth project over the whole semester.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Video

with Orsola Valenti

Image, sound and politics: how to raise the image The main aim of the course is to stimulate reflection on the audiovisual gesture. By confronting students with the complexity of audiovisual creation and its compositional dimension (image and sound, space and time, frame and rhythm, body and set), they are encouraged to grasp its richness and potential.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Images and movement

with Olivia Schenker

During one semester, the students made a very short film on the theme of Simulations. They acquired fundamental notions in the narrative, visual, and conceptual development of a video production.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop Photographic chamber

with Matthieu Gafsou

The workshop week 4x5 is both an introduction to the 4x5 technical camera and a way to kickstart a photographic project. Students experience the process of analog shooting, from development to large format printing. This intense week is highly technical, but also focused on developing a photographic language, allowing for a better understanding of the fundamental workings of photography.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Dissolution of genres and austerity in prise de vue

with Geray Mena

The workshop focused on the dissolution of genres within photography: documentary, fashion, still life and portraiture. Students built bridges between commercial and artistic practice.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Afterhuman

with Elizaveta Porodina

For this workshop, Elizaveta Porodina asked the students to explore the theme "AFTERHUMAN". This theme opens up perspectives for capturing futuristic landscapes, representing the potential fusion of technology and humanity. Think about visually depicting the coexistence of artificial intelligence, cybernetics or biotechnology with natural elements. Experiment with innovative techniques to convey a sense of evolution or transcendence. This exploration invites photographers to creatively interpret and visually narrate a future beyond conventional human experience.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Hyperlab

with Vincent Jacquier, Angelo Benedetto, Ali-Eddine Abdelkhalek, Jean-Vincent Simonet, Clément Rouzaud

In collaboration with the HYPEROUEST music festival, ECAL students were given the opportunity to design a visual installation in the room adjacent to the festival's ephemeral club, located on the Veillon wasteland in Crissier. For this project, 1st-year students worked in groups, mixing Bachelors in Graphic Design, Media & Interaction Design and Photography. Their main objective was to create powerful and creative visual sequences around the central theme of "HYPER". At the same time, second-year students in the Graphic Design option enriched this project by developing the exhibition's visual identity. These interdisciplinary collaborations stimulated exchanges and encouraged visual cohesion, connecting the different ideas and reinforcing the "laboratory" and experimental aspect of the project.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Redesign 22-23 - S1

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.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographie et arts plastiques

with Natacha Lesueur

Based on projects developed around the theme "Trompe L'oeil and Simulacra", the students developed a personal and in-depth work over an entire semester.

FOUNDATION YEAR

Photography option