ECAL MASTER DXD PORTFOLIO REVIEWS,08–09.04.2025,Online This event is open to future candidates for the new Master in Digital Experience Design who wish to obtain a preliminary opinion on their application. Futur candidates for the new Master in Digital Experience Design have the opportunity to present their portfolio during individual online appointments from April 8 to 9, 2025. PROCEDURE Each individual session takes place on Zoom and lasts a maximum of 20 minutes. It is suggested that participants prepare a short PDF presenting their portfolio. There are 19 places available each day, between 8.35am and 5.10pm. These are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. You are allowed to register for ONLY ONE time slot, which means that only one slot per person is available. If the slot is not clickable, it has already been booked. REGISTRATIONS (Doodle forms) Registration deadlines: Thursday April 3 Tuesday April 8 + Wednesday April 9, 2025 > Master Digital Experience Design A confirmation email with information and a Zoom link is sent a few days before the event.DATES & SCHEDULE08-09.04.2025 8h45-17h10 On registrationVENUEOnline, ZoomINFORMATIONFor specific questions, please contact : rsvp@ecal.ch
ECAL Lecture - Tyler Mitchell,25.03.2025,IKEA Auditorium, ECAL ECAL welcomes photographer Tyler Mitchell for a talk in conversation with Hannah Pröbsting, Production Manager at Photo Elysée. Born in 1995, Tyler Mitchell is an artist, photographer, and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, US. A graduate in Film and Television from NYU in 2017, his works are featured in prestigious collections, including the High Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. In 2018, he became the first Black photographer to shoot a Vogue US cover, featuring Beyoncé. His work has been published in Aperture, Dazed, i-D, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and exhibited worldwide (FOAM, Gagosian Gallery, ICP). His exhibition Wish This Was Real is presented at Photo Elysée in 2024 before heading to Paris in 2025.DATES & SCHEDULETuesday, March 25 18h Free entryVENUEIKEA Auditorium, ECALIN COLLABORATION WITHPhoto Elysée elysee.ch
ECAL LECTURE – JEAN-CHARLES DE CASTELBAJAC,18.03.2025,IKEA Auditorium, ECAL An avant-garde designer and artist, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac anticipated what today constitutes the basis of new creation: art and fashion, detour and collaboration. Multi-disciplinary work of Jean-Charles de Castelbajac - art, fashion and design - revolves around a short chromatic range of blue, yellow and red, one of the finest representations of which was to dress Pope John Paul II, bishops and priests for the 1997 World Youth Day. Passionate about heraldry, the science of coats of arms, vexillology, the science of flags, semiotics, the study of signs, pop art and the world of childhood, his art and fashion bring together these dualities: the epic, the historic, the traditional and the alternative. He has collaborated with many artists, including Keith Haring, Lady Gaga, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pedro Winter and Pharrell Williams. He began his career as a designer alongside his mother, setting up Ko & Co in Limoges. His first obvious garment was a coat cut from his boarding-school blanket, as well as clothes made from mops, thus launching the concept of upcycling. He went on to found the Jean-Charles de Castelbajac fashion house in 1978. As early as the 1980s, he anticipated the current decompartmentalization of art and fashion by collaborating with artists of all disciplines on his shows: musicians, photographers and visual artists. He worked with Miquel Barceló, Ben and Robert Combas to create tableau dresses, with Robert Mapplethorpe, Keith Haring and Cindy Sherman to create invitations for his shows, and with Malcolm McLaren to create the music for his shows. In 1986, he was exhibited at New York s Fashion Institute and Technology. In 2006, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, then at the Musée Galliera in Paris in 2007. Also an artist, he created a 3700 m2 fresco for Orly airport in Paris in 2015. In September 2018, he created a monumental work for the Biennale des antiquaires de Paris at the Grand Palais. From 2018 to 2022, he is artistic director of United Colors of Benetton. His artistic work is the subject of an exhibition entitled Le Peuple de Demain at the children s gallery of the Centre Pompidou in 2021-2022, presented at the West Bund Museum in Shanghai and at the Centre Pompidou Malaga in 2023. In 2022, he will also be present at the Mobilier National with the scenography for the exhibition No taste for bad taste, retracing 40 years of French design, and with a carte blanche entitled L atour d assises, focusing on French styles. In June 2024, he installs a 15-metre trellis sculpture on the wall of the Société de Géographie in Paris, called “L Ange Géographe”. He was chosen by the Diocese of Paris to design the liturgical vestments and ornaments for the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris in December 2024.DATES & SCHEDULE18.03.2025 6pm Free entryVENUEIKEA Auditorium, ECALWEBSITEjeancharlesdecastelbajac.com
Glass Reflections by Nouvel,12.03–09.05.2025,Gallery l elac Glass Reflections by Nouvel presents the creations of five Swiss designers who have combined their talent with the Mexican brand, renowned for its high-end glass craftsmanship. At the intersection of innovation and craftsmanship, "Glass Reflections by Nouvel" brings together five Swiss designers — Julie Richoz, Nicolas Le Moigne, Michel Charlot, Laurin Schaub, and Dimitri Nassisi — who partner with Nouvel, a Mexican brand that has been active in high-end glass craftsmanship for thirty years. From this cross-cultural initiative arise five unique creations, reflecting the designers distinctive and assertive visions while elevating the exceptional know-how of Nouvel s artisans. This exhibition also showcases visual proposals exploring various decorative techniques on Nouvel bottles, created by ECAL students.DATES & SCHEDULE12.03-09.05.2025 Wednesday to Friday, 1pm - 5pm Free entryVENUEGalerie l elac ECAL / Ecole cantonale d art de Lausanne Av. du Temple 5, 1020 RenensWEBSITEnouvel.glassDESIGNERS, , , Laurin Schaub & OPENING & TALKTuesday, March 11th 6pm TALK, IKEA auditorium Stanislas Colodiet Director, CIRVA - Centre international de recherche sur le verre et les arts plastiques, Marseille (FR) Matteo Gonet Glass artist, Münchenstein (CH) Monica Guggisberg Artist and designer, Norton (UK) Julie Richoz Designer, Paris (FR) Moderated by 7pm OPENING, Galerie l elacCREDITSRelief by Laurin Schaub, Photography: Fernando Etulain, Font: Saillon (François Rappo), Graphic design: Napo People
Master in Digital Experience Design – Information session,05.03.2025,ECAL & online ECAL is launching a MA in Digital Experience Design (DXD), which will start in autumn 2025. This two-year course, unique in Switzerland, is aimed at students with a Bachelor s degree in digital design, computer science or communication systems, who wish to specialize in the design of digital experiences and interfaces that take into account the specific needs of users and contexts of use. The program offers an experience and user-centered approach, integrating advanced research and design methodologies. Students work on practical projects that integrate cutting-edge tools and techniques to design interactive interfaces and complete digital experiences. The program is also designed to meet the requirements of industries where digital technology plays a key role, by preparing graduates to work in a variety of professional environments. It also pays particular attention to the professionalization of students, connecting them with industry and preparing them to meet current and future challenges. Thanks in particular to close collaboration with the EPFL+ECAL Lab and practical interdisciplinary projects, students will acquire advanced skills in Experience Design, User Experience (UX) Design, User Interface (UI) Design, Digital Product Management, and Digital Strategy. This MA programme will pave the way for careers in fields where digital technology plays a key role. DATES & SCHEDULEWednesday 5 March 2025 6pm-7pmVENUEAt ECAL & online (Zoom meeting) PARTNERepfl-ecal-lab.ch
ECAL lecture - Parasonic,04.03–09.04.2025,Leenaards Auditorium, ECAL As part of the research project Parasonic : transmission de pratiques aurales fugitives, ECAL is offering 3 lectures. Marie Thompson, Musicologist, London Co-founder of the Sonic Cyberfeminisms project and Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at the Open University, Milton Keynes (UK), Marie Thompson s work interrogates the links between gender, race and the culture of listening.Author of Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect and Aesthetic Moralism (2017), she offers, in this talk, an update of her resounding article: Whiteness and the Ontological turn in Sound Studies (2017). Jessie Cox, Musician, Cambridge Musician, composer and professor at Harvard University, Jessie Cox unveils an extraordinarily provocative and inspiring monograph: Sounds of Black Switzerland (Duke University Press, 2025). In this analysis, supervised by George Lewis, he notes the varieties of Black life in Switzerland, the particularities of anti-blackness, and its effects: erasure, silence and limitation, as well as the creation of specific listening practices. Hannah Catherine Jones, Artist, London Hannah Catherine Jones (aka foxymoron) is a PhD researcher and multi-instrumentalist, conductor and founder of the diasporic queer choir Chiron Choir, broadcaster and DJ for BBC Radio/TV and NTS - The Opera Show. All his work is linked to institutional decolonization and the diasporic uses of vibration-frequency-sound-music, notably in the context of individual and collective healing practices.DATES & SCHEDULEMarie Thompson, Musicologist, London Tuesday, March 4th 2025 9h00-12h00, Leenaards Auditorium Jessie Cox, Musician, Cambridge Tuesday 18th March 2025 9h00-12h00, Leenaards Auditorium Hannah Catherine Jones, Artist, London Wednesday April 9th 2025 13:30-18:30, Lecture, Auditoire Leenaards 4.30pm, Performance, Studio Cinéma Free entryVENUELeenaards Auditorium, ECAL
Visual Identity BA1 S1 2024/2025 During the visual identity class, first-year Bachelor s students in Graphic Design were tasked with creating a poster project based on a randomly assigned event. They had to define their own visual system and explore a series of hand-drawn typographic posters. The visual identity of the event was developed through a poster and a flyer, accompanied by a research booklet documenting their entire creative process.
Type Design BA1 S1 2024/2025 First-year students were invited to manually sketch the typographic skeleton of lowercase alphabet letters. The objective was to maintain the proportions, curves, and characteristic axes of each letter while paying close attention to visual coherence and consistency in the drawing.
Image Creation BA1 2024/2025 First-year students were invited to design their own coloring book, while exploring bichromy and experimenting with different printing techniques to create the cover.
Editorial Design BA1 S1 2024/2025 During the editorial design course with Harry Bloch, the 1st year students developed, during the fall semester, an edition around a personal survey.
Summer University in Veneto 2024 In September 2024, 3rd year students explored the rich heritage of Italy s Veneto region, an area at the crossroads of artistic, cultural and industrial history. The trip gave the students an invaluable opportunity to immerse themselves between tradition and innovation, and to experience different facets of design and publishing through enriching encounters. On the way to Venice, a stop at Carlo Scarpa s Brion Tomb gave us an insight into the architecture of this funerary monument. In Treviso, a meeting with former student Federico Barbon led to a fascinating discussion on book design.VeronaIn Verona, a visit to the Fedrigoni paper mill, which specialises in the creation of top-of-the-range paper, gave them an insight into the manufacturing process and enabled them to design a collaborative project based on paper samples. The students also had the opportunity to explore the precious collection of manuscripts in the Biblioteca del Capitolare, a unique witness to the history of the written word.In Venice, they discovered the Art Biennale, exploring the exhibitions at the Arsenale and the Giardini. At the same time, a meeting with Benjamin Reichen from the Åbäke collective enabled them to find out more about his involvement in a screen-printing workshop dedicated to the rehabilitation of prisoners. A visit to the Grafiche Veneziane printing works rounded off this immersion in contemporary publishing.
Soft Photography Soft Photography is a research project conducted by the Master of Photography at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne with the support of the HES-SO. It aims to shed light on the role of human emotions in the creation and reception of images produced using generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) or computer-generated imagery (CGI). Carried out from September 2025 to Spring 2026, this research aims to examine an unthought-of aspect of generative AI and CGI: the significance of human emotions, both in the creation of these tools (database annotation, software programming, cultural bias) and in the perception of the produced images (empathy, visual culture, subconsciousness) or their uses (capitalism of emotion, soft power, self-representation, political propaganda). The discussion and research surrounding the exponential development of AI technologies in visual culture often overlook this emotional component, even though it is structurally linked to these technologies, as they necessarily involve human apprehension. Unlike automated images, which frequently have an operational function and are only ‘seen by machines, images generated by AI and CGI are essentially created for humans, whether for social networks, advertising, industry, politics, or the artistic field. Soft Photography aims to examine the role and function of emotions by analyzing these new photographic tools and looking at specific occurrences, such as memories reconstructed in CGI or AI. Far from strictly formal experimentation, these practices demonstrate the complex entanglement between emotion, subjectivity, technical processes, and vulnerability. The project, therefore, aims to map, analyze, and experiment with the place of emotions within these new practices. Image: Clean Girl, ECAL/Mirielle Rohr, 2025Project leaderMilo KellerResearch teamGiulia Bini Marco de Mutiis Claus Gunti Milo Keller Clément LambeletPeriodSeptember 2024 – Spring 2026Supported byHES-SO, Réseau de Compétences Design et Arts Visuels RCDAVLecturersSalomé Chatriot Charlie Engman Simon LehnerAssistantsTanguy Morvan Fabienne WatzkeStudentsRiccardo Androni, IT Elisa Azevedo, PT Eva Bao Rivas, IT Francesca Bergamini, IT Min Dai, CN Alix Debraine, CH Lóa Fenzy, IS Xiao Fu, CN Nabarun Gogoi, IN Elisa Hampe, IT Doyoung Kim, KR Binyu Lin, CN Zhiyue Liu, CN Andrey Lopatin, RU Thomas Martin, UK Jose Martinez Martin, MX Daniel Martínez, ES Eriko Miyata, JP Visvaldas Morkevicius, LT Gaia Pierobon, IT Luna Pons, FR Mirielle Rohr, DE Clara Stote, BE Julieta Tarraubella, ARContributorsAnn-Christin Bertrand Simone C Niquille Paolo Cirio Kim Knoppers Taisuke Koyama Clothilde Morette
Hi-Lo-Fi The first-year students of the Bachelor in Industrial Design (BADI) at ECAL, under the direction of Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard, head of BADI, embarked on a project to design their own unique interpretations of a Bluetooth speaker. This project challenged the students to work creatively within the constraints of an existing kit of technical components, encouraging them to explore innovative approaches in terms of form, materiality, and functionality.
ATHENA PROMISES,25–28.02.2025,Cinema Studio, ECAL Following a workshop in Athens with artist Nikolas Ventourakis, students in ECAL s Bachelor of Photography programme are unveiling an exhibition that captures the contrasts of the city, between its ancient heritage and contemporary challenges. Athens, famous for its historic role as the cradle of democracy, has also been marked in its contemporary history by the financial and social crises that have rocked Greece. Recently, the city has attracted worldwide attention for major events such as the 2004 Olympic Games and the DOCUMENTA exhibition in 2017. Today, Athens is undergoing unbridled urban development, while coping with the effects of climate change. Heat waves, floods, forest fires: here, myth and reality collide, antiquity rubs shoulders with modernity, and this sprawling metropolis, home to almost half of Greece s population, becomes the scene of an ideological clash. At the heart of one of the oldest cities in the world, the students immersed themselves in a city rich in contrasts. They explored the city through documentary, staged and performative eyes. In the warm, golden sunshine, they explored a wide range of themes, from derelict Olympic infrastructure to the ambitious $8 billion housing project, The Ellinikon, as well as the testimonies of young Athenian artists. These artists, deeply attached to their roots and history, sometimes feel trapped in a city where recognition seems out of reach. Under the artistic direction of Nikolas Ventourakis, this workshop offered students in the Photography Bachelor s programme an opportunity to explore their own work.DATES & SCHEDULE25–28.02.2025 Free entryVENUECinema Studio, ECAL Av. du Temple 5, 1020 RenensHEAD OF DEPARTMENTARTISTIC DEPUTYOPENINGMonday, 24.02.2025 6.00pm
Visual Identity BA3 S1 2024-2025 Through the prism of visual identity, this project addresses issues of graphic language and artistic direction. Each stage of the project examines an aspect of the development of a visual identity: research, concept, visual language, design and communication. RADIONModular visual identity designed for the RADION club in Amsterdam. Designed to be both recognisable and impactful, it adapts to all formats and uses in order to meet the needs of a nightclub in a highly competitive environment. HS UHT USTThis project explores a potential overhaul of the Swiss Shooting Federation s visual identity in order to place it in a more contemporary and rigorous context. By moving away from the traditional clichés associated with shooting sports, this new identity aims to reposition the federation by emphasising excellence, precision and modernity in order to appeal to a new audience. La jetée In 1962, French filmmaker Chris Marker released La Jetée. It was an experimental film made up of hundreds of 35 mm black and white shots. It tells the story of a journey through time in a distorted post-apocalyptic Paris. The visual identity is based on an original typography designed to pay homage to Marker s raw material and its French context, and transcribes the idea of sequencing and light projection. It evolves through a teaser for a screening of La Jetée and a booklet containing the entire film script. ICONOHow do you talk to images? Should exhibition images be shown or not? Collages, appropriationists, the whole world up to the present day, a constellation of images... Since the beginning of the 20th century, iconographic artists have been appropriating images produced on an industrial scale. The images of these same artists form the name of the fictitious exhibition ICONO. By re-appropriating them, identity uses their codes to communicate. ApneaNumbers are omnipresent in the world of freediving, whether measuring depth or the duration of an immersion. This visual identity is based on a variable typography with two axes, each representing one of these parameters. Duration is illustrated by the change in the fat of the counter-forms, symbolising how full the diver s lungs are. Depth is represented by the thickness of the contours, evoking the gradation of colours that darken with immersion. The animation of these variables creates a breathing effect, echoing the rhythm of apnea. Orpheum TheaterNow abandoned, the Orpheum Theater in New Bedford, USA, had its heyday at the beginning of the XXᵉ century. To illustrate its transition from 6ᵉ to 7ᵉ art, the identity of this film library traces the three major periods that marked this venue. It combines neoclassical ornamentation, as reinterpreted in the Art Deco era, with a typographic structure inspired by flyers from the golden age of theatre. The whole is geometrically