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GRAPHIC DESIGN

Contextual Design – BA2 S1 2025

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 BA2 – S1 2025

with Aurèle Sack

Second-year students were required to manually develop the lowercase letters of two typefaces.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Editorial Design – BA2 S1 2025

with Diego Bontognali

As part of this editorial design course, students developed a research-based project focused on the selection and design of texts around a shared theme. Based on a curated set of sources, each project presents two editions with identical content, produced in both a large and a small format.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

GEOFF HAN – WORK AND TURN

by Leandra Adler, Cansu Celen, Layana Comte, Anaïs Dermont, Camille Genoud, Eve Gremaud, Eloïse Guillod, Mathis Harmant, Marie Hintzy, Matteo Lucca, Maxime Manera, Gaëtan Mauclair, Mathys Mauron, Emma Morisseau, Sara Pedersoli, Lucie Pittet, Hélène Prongué, Leonardo Mariucci, Alice Refachinho, Justine Renevey, Gaspard Schlatter, Laura Simons, Vu Toni Thien Duc, Maïa Yassin, Jonas Zesiger

In November 2025, 27 ECAL students took part in Work and Turn, a workshop led by Geoff Han exploring the theme of labor and the often overlooked work that sustains the school. Located in a former IRIL knitwear factory in the industrial area of Renens, ECAL occupies a vast building whose daily functioning depends on many visible and invisible forms of labor. Over five days, students worked in small teams to produce a collective 96-page pocket-sized publication. Each pair created an 8-page photographic visual essay focusing on a specific aspect of labor at ECAL. Rather than relying on traditional portraits, the projects explored more poetic and indirect ways of documenting traces of work through spaces, gestures, materials, and infrastructures. The entire publication was manually printed on an offset press by the students themselves, in either black or red and black. The printing process was a central part of the workshop: participants prepared the plates, set up the press, and ran the prints. This hands-on production process echoed the theme of labor explored throughout the publication.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Betaverse – 2026

with Mario Von Rickenbach

This project brings together a series of experiments created by students exploring the intersection between physical reality and immaterial imaginary worlds. Using a mixed reality headset, they transform their environment into experimental spaces where real elements become supports for digital creations.

Arboricrop — Next generation agriculture using real-time information from tree crops

with Stéphane Halmaï-Voisard, Younès Klouche, Frederik Mahler-Andersen Pietro Alberti, Maxwell Ashford, Alain Bellet, Laurent Soldini

Arboricrop is a research project conducted by a multidisciplinary consortium bringing together Vivent Biosignals, Changins – University of Viticulture and Oenology, and ECAL/Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne (HES-SO), with the support of Innosuisse. Its objective is to develop a miniaturized plant electrophysiology sensor designed for use in real agricultural conditions: the VITA Mini Sensor.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Talk to me – 2026

with Alain Bellet

By combining code, electronics, and physical prototyping, first-year students design interactive objects that react, respond, and invite interaction, gathered under the title Talk To Me. Using dialogue as playground and inspired by conversational interfaces, the projects transform physical objects into new forms of interaction.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Création d'image - Double Reading - BA1 2025-2026

with Guy Meldem

First-year students were invited to design a 16-page publication. By experimenting with duotone through various printing techniques, they structured a dual reading experience dependent on the printed colors.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Editorial Design - Great Expectations - BA1 S1 2025-2026

with Harry Bloch

During the editorial design course with Harry Bloch, the first-year students each laid out a chapter of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. A final edition compiling all the chapters was produced for the occasion.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Visual Identity - Cut & Paste - BA1 S1 2025-2026)

with Adeline Mollard

During the visual identity course, the 1st year of the Graphic Design bachelor had to carry out a poster project from a random event. They had to define their own visual system and explored a search for hand-made typographic posters. The visual identity of the event was developed through a poster and a flyer, accompanied by a research notebook grouping their entire creative process.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Type Design - BA1 S1 2025-2026

with Robert Huber

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.

DIGITAL EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Pixel Perfect – 2025

with Romain Collaud, Frederik Mahler-Andersen, Lara Défayes

Pixel Perfect is the semester project of the Interface Design orientation module, semester I. It invites students to put into practice the methods and principles introduced in the Macro UI and Screen Grammar courses, exploring how graphic systems structure the digital user experience. Based on the analysis of an existing website, the project encourages a critical and creative reinterpretation of its visual identity and hierarchy. The challenge is to design a contemporary, coherent and expressive interface capable of renewing the original design system while respecting its uses, content and functional constraints, as well as its key principles: consistency, modularity, and the scalability of graphic and interactive components.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Newspaper 2025-26

with Elric Petit

Newspaper is an industrial design project whose objective is to enable a personal stance on a topic of one’s choice. The project is based on an article taken from a newspaper or a specialized magazine, used as a conceptual and critical starting point. Through the analysis, interpretation, and translation of this written content, the project invites the development of a design reflection, questioning the issues, forms, and uses related to the chosen theme.

DIGITAL EXPERIENCE DESIGN

The Modular Mindset

with Antonin Waterkeyn

From connected watches to large-scale billboards, digital interfaces now operate across all scales. Designing a visual identity in this context requires thinking in terms of systems that can adapt to multiple formats, uses, and rhythms. This workshop explores the creation of modular, animated identities for a fictional music label, drawing on motion design and procedural logic. Using Cavalry, students develop dynamic visual systems that transform according to precise rules, while maintaining graphic coherence and a strong relationship to the sound universe.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Beyond The Screen – 2025

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.

FILM STUDIES

Workshop with Benoît Dervaux

by Noé Bregnard, Eva Rust, Victor Durand Matinella, Lou Haenggi, Samuel Harari, Hana Magimel, Nolan Grando, Mileny Viera de Andrade, Zélia Zanone

Second-year Bachelor's students attended a workshop with Belgian cinematographer Benoît Dervaux, known for his work on the Dardenne brothers' films. He was responsible for the cinematography on the Swiss films Laissez-moi by Maxime Rappaz (2023) and À bras-le-corps by Marie-Elsa Sgualdo (2025).

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

COUNTDOWN – 2025

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.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Workshop - CGI WITH AREA OF WORK – 2025

with Area Of Work

The Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) Workshop is an introduction to 3D creation software that allows you to create images with photographic qualities that are not photographs.  This workshop centers on the theme of “Minimal,” inviting students to explore the creative and technical foundations of contemporary CGI image-making. It emphasizes materiality and the expressive impact of reduction. Every form, light, and texture has a specific role, negative space guides the emotional tone, and fine details unify the composition.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Maisie Cuisine Book

with Maisie Cousins

The aim of this workshop, led by photographer Maisie Cousins, is to use photography as a tool to broaden our powers of observation. During the week, students explored macro photography to create miniature and abstract worlds using everyday objects and accessories. This invites us to reflect: what else are we overlooking in our immediate environment?

PHOTOGRAPHY

ECAL x Polaroid Foundation

with Douglas Mandry

This workshop brought together ECAL graduate artist Douglas Mandry, the Polaroid Foundation, and around thirty Bachelor Photography students. They had the exceptional opportunity to work with a camera that produces Polaroid films in a 40 × 60 cm format and weighs nearly 200 kg. This experience was made possible thanks to its operators, John Reuter and Harriet Browse, who introduced the students to the use of this unique device and the Polaroid Foundation team. Douglas Mandry provided the project’s artistic direction and supported the students in their experiments carried out directly with and on the films. The final result was presented as a collective exhibition on ECAL’s premises, revealing a particularly rich diversity of approaches and visions.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Digital Attention

with Irene Pereyra

Where does our attention go? In this workshop, first-year students become their own data researchers for 24 hours, observing when and why their phone draws focus. They track triggers, emotions, recovery time, control, context, apps used, duration, body language, energy, and inner dialogue. These everyday traces are then transformed into a one-page scrollytelling experience, a visual story of how attention moves through a day.

FINE ARTS

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Vibrations Forward

with Joël Vacheron, Angelo Benedetto, Olympe Boutaghane, Francis Baudevin

Based on archives and experiences associated with Vibrations (1991–2013), this research analyses how the magazine's textual, graphic and photographic content provides insight into the challenges of communicating about popular music today.

(Re-)Viewing Paik – 2025

with Patrick Keller, François Bovier, Erika Marthins

A comparative and practice-based study on the transformative effects at play in the digital and hybrid exhibition of a body of non-digital native artworks (some artworks by artist Nam June Paik serving as a mean of understanding).

FINE ARTS

FINE ARTS

MA CI

The Assembly of Writings

with Federico Nicolao

A collective exploration of the new relations between contemporary writing and artistic practice.

Design for Recycling through Automation and Robotics in Apparel Accessories and Footwear

with Maxwell Ashford

This project develops design for recycling textile-based goods, one of the most damaging waste streams, using contemporary toolsets to dismantle products into pure fractions.

MEDIA & INTERACTION DESIGN

Audio Reactive Festival Poster Series

with Talia Cotton

First-year students designed a series of audioreactive posters for a music festival. They utilized dynamic tools and live data input to explore sound-responsive visuals within social media's digital format, creating a cohesive and recognizable festival identity.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Léa Corin – Neither Fully Free, Nor Fully Captive

by Léa Corin

Neither Fully Free, Nor Fully Captive explores the theme of day parole. Through a video installation and a book, this project archives and documents the activities of an association dedicated to reintegration. The projection, conceived as an emotional archive, combines experimental videos with sound testimonies from individuals on day parole supported by the association, revealing the complexity of this transition. The book, as a complement, adopts a documentary and sensitive approach, blending stories and visual creations. This project transcends graphic form to foster social dialogue and shed light on an essential yet often overlooked issue.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Flora Hayoz – FACE À FACE

by Flora Hayoz

FACE À FACE is an exploration of loneliness through two mediums: dance and graphic design. This project brings together two practices to give shape to a hybrid creation. On one hand, a choreographic piece co-choreographed with Gaia Menchini, centred on states of loneliness and then captured on video. The second medium is a publication that extends the piece. By questioning the book as an object, it is designed to be read by two people and becomes a tool for dialogue and listening. The publication thus diverts from its usual uses, creating a sensory experience. The two media interact with each other, inviting us to experience solitude both in movement and in the sharing of reading. Thus, FACE À FACE offers an experience where solitude becomes the starting point for an encounter.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Diego Steiner – Hybrid Modules

by Diego Steiner

Hybrid Modules explores the link between traditional craftsmanship and contemporary technologies through the creation of a 3D-printed modular typographic tool for use with a manual letterpress. Designed on a grid, the modular alphabet becomes a set of physical dies, which can be inserted by hand into the press. The slow, repetitive process becomes an integral part of the visual language, making visible the time and care of the gesture. A series of A2 posters promotes a series of fictitious conferences entitled “ART, CRAFT & TECHNOLOGY - Guests in Switzerland”.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Cyprien Valenza – Patterna

by Cyprien Valenza

Patterna is an experimental variable typeface designed around two axes: Weight and Weaving. Inspired by Cassandre's Bifur from the 1930s and the arrangement of threads on Jacquard looms, Patterna is based on a rigorous grid that structures shapes and spacing. Its modular layering system allows for graphic experimentation with variations, making each composition dynamic. Numerous alternates reinforce its formal richness. Patterna challenges fashion conventions by offering a modular, dense typeface designed as both a graphic tool and a writing system.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Coraline Beyeler – 5R

by Coraline Beyeler

5R is a documentary book explores the contrast between urban and rural agriculture, focusing on developments driven by new generations. It addresses issues related to pollution as well as social, health, and economic challenges.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Lidia Molina González – Toilet Break Magazine

by Lidia Molina González

It all started with taking a break. A pause. A moment alone in a shared space: quiet, ordinary, a little strange. Toilets might not be the first place you’d look for big ideas, but that’s why we chose them. Toilet Break uses this overlooked space to explore how we live together, take space, and connect. This first issue is about in-betweens: between public and private, inside and outside. It gathers voices from Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, across generations and practices. A place where ideas circulate freely, where serious things can be said with a wink. A collective and personal space to test new editorial forms, listen more carefully, and believe in detours as a way forward. To take, quite literally, a moment to reflect and sit with things.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Marc Facchinetti – The Swiss Climate Report

by Marc Facchinetti

The Swiss Climate Report is an editorial design project that explores climate change through data. Based on recent meteorological records, put into perspective with historical averages sometimes dating back more than 150 years, the book is supported by plugins custom-developed for InDesign. These tools translate scientific data such as temperatures, UV radiation and Dobson units into typographic variations and ASCII forms. This experimental approach offers an alternative reading of climate information. The project offers a raw and precise computer graphics perspective.

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Mathilde Driebold – Ce qu'il reste de nous

by Mathilde Driebold

This book exists for what remains of us—and perhaps, of you. Fragments of an intimate past inscribed in, and lost within, a social context that goes beyond us. This diploma project takes the form of an editorial narrative, blending personal stories and social archives. Through this work, I explore the traces left by addiction within a family setting, bringing individual and collective memory into dialogue. Ce qu'il reste de nous also demonstrates that graphic design can be used as a tool to question social realities, give shape to sensitive subjects, and break the silence.