ECAL – Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne

The École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) is a a university of art and design based in Renens. It is regularly ranked among the top 10 schools of art and design in the world. Directed by Alexis Georgacopoulos, it offers six Bachelor level programs (Visual Arts, Cinema, Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Media & Interaction Design, Photography) and five Master’s level (Visual Arts, Cinema, Product Design, Photography, Type Design ). It also offers a Preparatory Year preparing for entry to its departments and two Master of Advanced Studies in Design for Luxury & Craftsmanship and Design Research for Digital Innovation (with the EPFL + ECAL Lab).

At the beginning of the academic year 2017-2018, the ECAL welcomes more than 613 students. The influence of the school at European and worldwide level is evidenced by the successes of former students, countless newspaper articles, regular citations in trade magazines or the general public and an enviable number of exhibitions in spaces prestigious as the Swiss Cultural Center (Paris), Pompidou Center (Paris), Cooper Union (New York), Design Days Dubai, Brussels Design September, documenta (Kassel), Droog Design Hotel (Amsterdam), International Fashion & Photography Festival (Hyères), Gallery Libby Sellers (London), European House of Photography (Paris), Elysée Museum (Lausanne), National Institute of Design Ahmedabad, International Mobile Salone (Milan), swissnex (Bangalore, Boston, Rio de Janeiro) from Janeiro,

Over the years, ECAL has considerably increased the number of its collaborations with art and design colleges around the world and leading companies in the most diverse fields: Alessi, Audemars Piguet, Azzedine Alaïa , Baccarat, BCV, Bernardaud, BMW Group, Camper, Cassina, Paris Pompidou Center, Christofle, e15, kreo Gallery, Galleries Lafayette, Galleria Carla Sozzani, Hatje Cantz, Hansgrohe Axor, Hermes, Hublot, IKEA, Mauviel, Mover Sportswear, Luceplan Nestlé, Nespresso, Petith, Pierre Hardy, Punkt., Rémy Martin, Scott, SIGG, Swiss International Air Lines, Swissnex, USM, Vacheron Constantin, Vitra, Wallpaper * or Woolmark …

Thanks to the network established at ECAL and the production of a portfolio meeting the most demanding professional standards, graduates work after their studies for well-known offices and companies or directly set up their own structure.

ECAL Admission

Online registration from 18 November 2014 to 6 March 2015*

Foundation Year

BACHELOR

Online registration from 18 November 2014 to 17 April 2015*

• Fine Arts
• Industrial Design
• Graphic Design
• Photography
• Media & Interaction design
• Film Studies

MASTER

Online registration from 18 November 2014 to 27 March 2015*

• Master in Fine Arts
• Master in Art Direction
• Master in Product Design
• Master in Film Studies

MAS

Online registration from 18 November 2014 to 27 March 2015*

MAS in Design for Luxury and Craftsmanship

*Outside these periods, online registration is desactivated.

ECAL Lausanne Ranking

ECAL is ranked 5th in the world by Dezeen for best architecture and design schools

In the Dezeen Hot List, architecture and design schools around the world are judged by the quality of the student and graduate projects. ECAL has come out on the fifth rank of the Schools Hot List.

http://www.dezeen.com/dezeenhotlist/2016/schools-hot-list/

The influential website Dezeen has launched this year Dezeen Hot List, their comprehensive guide for architects, designers, brands, schools, events and more, that their audience most wanted to read about over the last year.

Dezeen Hot List is the most comprehensive data survey of architecture and design media ever conducted. Based entirely on audience data, the 400-strong list reveals the key players, the newsmakers and the emerging talents in the design world.

ECAL Tuition Fee

INFORMATION

The ECAL Secretariat (Tel. +41 (0)21.316.99.39 – inscription@ecal.ch) is happy to provide any additional information.

ECAL Courses

MAS in Design for Luxury & Craftsmanship

ECAL Photography

Bachelor Photography

From artistic photography to commissioned work, via still-life, documentary, portrait or fashion, this programme is for students passionate about photography as a medium and wishing to sharpen their eye and refine their technique. Prospective, pragmatic and experimental, this Bachelor course is provided in the framework of the Visual Communication Department, which concurrently offers crossover courses and projects enabling students to acquire multidisciplinary skills (graphic design, interaction design, film).

Through courses and workshops provided by major photographers on the international scene, the students become seasoned in the various fields (editorial, documentary and artistic) of photography. Involvement in exhibitions, publications or assignments commissioned by institutions provides an actual immersion into the professional world. The students also benefit from a wide range of theoretical courses and conferences on the ECAL premises.

The skills and projects acquired throughout the curriculum serve to produce a portfolio to the highest technical and aesthetic standards of actual professional practice. Whether they intend to work on applied or self-assigned photography projects, but also in art direction or creating moving images, either self-employed or working for a company, students who train at ECAL have a wide range of opportunities to choose from when they complete their CV. If they so wish they may also pursue in their chosen discipline by doing the new Master Photography at ECAL or an equivalent programme in another institution.

Head Visual Communication

• Vincent Jacquier

Head Photography

• Milo Keller

Professors

• Anoush Abrar
• Laurence Bonvin, Berlin
• Milo Keller
• Natacha Lesueur, Paris
• Marco Poloni, Berlin

Multidisciplinary fields professors

• Luc Andrié
• Alain Bellet
• Angelo Benedetto
• Claus Gunti, Berne
• Vincent Jacquier
• Violène Pont
• François Rappo
• Pauline Saglio
• Anouk Schneider
• Joël Vacheron, Lisbonne

Lecturers

• Sébastien Agnetti
• Séverine Barde
• Sami Benhadj
• Estelle Blaschke
• Angelo Cirimele, Paris
• Anne Dressen, Berlin
• Matthieu Gafsou
• Nicolas Haeni
• Nathalie Herschdorfer
• Philippe Jarrigeon, Paris
• Christian Joschke, Lyon
• Cyrille Piguet
• Pierre Ponant, Paris
• Paolo Roversi, Paris
• RVB Books, Paris
• Orsola Valenti

Visiting lecturers

• Viktoria Binschtok, Berlin
• Lucas Blalock, New York
• Olaf Breuning, New York
• Adam Broomberg, Londres
• Stefan Burger, Zurich
• Pierre Debusschere, Bruxelles
• Brice Dellsperger, Paris
• Marco De Mutiis, Winterthur
• Ruth Erdt, Zurich
• Jason Evans, Londres
• Erwan Frotin, Paris
• Julien Gallico, Paris
• Yann Gross
• Michel Guerrin, Paris
• Claus Gunti, Bern
• Ren Hang † , Bejing
• Pieter Hugo, Le Cap
• Ina Jang, New York
• Erik Kessels, Amsterdam
• Peter Knapp, Paris
• Nico Krebs (Tonk), Berlin
• Thomas Mailaender, Paris
• Michel Mallard, Paris
• Mazaccio & Drowilal, Toulouse
• Théo Mercier, Paris
• Talyo Onorato (Tonk), Berlin
• Christian Patterson, New York
• Harri Peccinotti, Paris
• Antje Peters, Berlin
• Walter Pfeiffer, Zürich
• Augustin Rebetez
• Maya Rochat
• Daniel Sannwald, Londres
• Joachim Schmid, Berlin
• Jürgen Teller, London
• Lukas Wassmann, Zurich
• Mirjam Wirz, Zurich
• Francesco Zanot, Milan

Assistants

• Florian Amoser
• Gianni Camporota
• Quentin Lacombe
• Clément Lambelet

Admission
Admission requirements

Term
6 semesters

Yearly fees
CHF 1925. –

Credits
180 ECTS

Qualification issued
Bachelor of Arts HES-SO in Visual Communication, major in Photography

ECAL Graphic Design

A sourcebook of graphic design by one of the leading European art schools, the ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, headed by Alexis Georgacopoulos.

Designed and art directed by Gilles Gavillet, this volume aims to show the variety of productions dealing with publishing, digital interfaces, and interactive devices, as well as to highlight the wealth of typographic practices in the field of contemporary design.

As Francois Rappo writes in this volume, “our everyday experience of graphic spaces, to use a generic term, is constantly expanding; spaces, whether static or dynamic and interactive — architecture, interfaces, posters, pages, packaging, screens — now form a new, continuous, optical landscape … Following the logo-centric models inspired by semiotics, or drawing directly on the Conceptual art of the 1970s, today’s graphic design has seen renewed interest in the sensory dimension of the visual experience, in terms of its qualities, modalities, and potential for modelization …

The ECAL graphic design work showcased in the present publication — and today’s design agenda — reveals the search for a synthesis, or rather a remix, of a certain fascination for the experiential nature of media, foregrounded as an innovative exploratory quality that in itself justifies the project, together with a focus on the contextual reality of the message and its social implications. This is a synthetic vision that is still on a quest for its own explicit models and that may dream of abolishing the figure of the author, a hangover from the 2000s, in favor of a broadly conceived perceptual community.”

ECAL Masters

As a decisive turning point in a career or as a follow-up to a Bachelor in Industrial Design, this Master programme is for students wishing to focus on two fundamental aspects of a designer’s practice, personal research as well as the professional handling of commissions for clients, companies or producers.

Besides the steadily ongoing refinement of design research abilities and practical design skills the students are confronted with the multifaceted realities of the design business. From production processes and concepts of efficiency through to the value of design, this Master programme offers the tools to become a successful professional.

Supervised by renowned practitioners and theoreticians, the programme revolves around three basic pillars: a personal project developed by the student throughout the curriculum, assignments in cooperation with international companies leading to various productions, exhibitions and publications in the international press and the drawing up of a Master’s thesis. Students benefit from ECAL’s exceptional resources in terms of both infrastructure and the school’s unique network in the art and design fields.

Upon completion of this programme and with the help of additional training in fields such as photography, students build up a portfolio to the highest professional standards. ECAL graduates are much sought after by international agencies, design studios and companies or run their own business.

Head

• Camille Blin

Professors and Visiting Lecturers

• Tomás Alonso, Londres
• Camille Blin
• Ronan Bouroullec, Paris
• Thilo Alex Brunner, Zurich
• Christian Kaegi, Zurich
• Anniina Koivu, Bâle
• Jonathan Olivares, Los Angeles
• Martin Postler, Londres
• Daniel Rybakken, Oslo
• Augustin Scott de Martinville
• Brynjar Sigurðarson, Berlin
• Alexander Taylor, Londres
• Bethan Laura Wood, Londres

Assistants

• Maxime Augay
• Anthony Guex
• Carolien Niebling

ECAL Summer School