Events are an integral part of the master programs: from workshops with guests professors to lectures series with relevant practitioners.
past events
Wed, Feb 14, 2024
masters’ talks
7.30 pm — Event at DHub
Open to the public
BIG-GAME, Elric Petit & Augustin Scott de Martinville
How we turn ideas into products
The founders of BIG-GAME chose to study design because they wanted to create objects that would become part of people’s daily lives. Almost 20 years after founding the studio, transforming an idea into a product is still the most exciting part of their work. Design is not a hard science, there is no right or wrong. There are many ways to get from an idea to a finished product. Sometimes they take inspiration from unusual places and use their own methods to create models and prototypes.
Augustin Scott de Martinville, Grégoire Jeanmonod and Elric Petit are BIG-GAME. The studio describes its work as simple, functional and optimistic. It produces a variety of products and accessories for companies such as Alessi, Hay, Karimoku New Standard, Muji, Magis or Muuto. BIG-GAME’s work is often accessible, charming and, above all, useful.
The studio has received numerous awards including the Swiss Design Award, the iF design award, the Wallpaper Design Award, the Good Design Award, the Hublot Design Award and Design Preis Schweiz. BIG-GAME’s works are part of the collections of the Museum fur Gestaltung, the Vitra Design Museum, the Centre Georges Pompidou as well as the MoMA.The studio is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. In addition to their design work, the three founders of BIG-GAME also serve as professors at ECAL / University of Arts and Design Lausanne.
Wed, Feb 14, 2024
bookworm
The Face magazine
Only for MED students
The Face magazine
Magazines are a unique document of the spirit of their time. The Face, designed by Neville Brody between 1981 and 1986, is a good example of total graphic work. Focused on music and fashion, its style was highly influential and largely defined the aesthetics of the 1980s.
Over the Bookworm sessions we will explore several iconic magazines that capture the spirit of the era in which they were designed. We will place the magazines in their context and try to define what makes them relevant in the history of 20th century editorial design. The Bookworm sessions are guided by Andreu Jansà, librarian and curator of the Enric Bricall Reserve Fund.
Wed, Jan 31, 2024
graphic.elisava lectures
7.30 pm — Sala Aleix Carrió
Open to the public
Giliane Cachin
Positive and negative restrictions in graphic design
Positive and negative restrictions in graphic design
When do restrictions in the design help creativity, and when do they require us to find new solutions? Under the prism of this question, each component of a layout will be reviewed during this lecture and analyzed from different angles (grid-system, text block, typeface and materiality).
Born in 1990 in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, Giliane Cachin is an independent graphic designer based in Zurich. After graduating from ECAL in 2014, she worked for the studio NORM, as well as for the Lineto foundry and its founder Cornel Windlin. Today, beside running her own studio, she teaches editorial design at ECAL and typography at ZHdK, together with David Keshavjee and Marietta Eugster.
As a child, Giliane Cachin accompanied her engineer father to print industry fairs and was fascinated by all types of data visualization, such as technical drawings, information tables, color print tests etc. Today, in her practice, she likes to work around the density of information and the implementation of grid systems to render content clear and accessible all while letting the available data guide her designs.
Wed, Jan 24, 2024
bookworm
Award-winning books
Only for MED students
What does a well-designed book look like? In this first session we will look at some books that have recently won awards in competitions such as “The Most Beautiful Swiss Books”, the Frankfurt Book Fair or the Laus Awards. Through the verdict of a jury of experts, we will analyse what factors currently determine excellence in book design.
Over the Bookworm sessions we will explore several iconic books that capture the spirit of the era in which they were designed. We will place the books in their context and try to define what makes them relevant in the history of 20th century book design. The Bookworm sessions are guided by Andreu Jansà, librarian and curator of the Enric Bricall Reserve Fund.
Wed, Jan 17, 2024
case studies
Albert Folch & Rafa Martínez, Folch
Latests projects
Only for MDV students
Latest projects
In an accelerated world, every aspect of our lives is in constant change. At Folch we bring together different disciplines to respond to every brief, always seeking to have an atypical vision. Each project is an opportunity to design concepts, brands, narratives and digital events, reaching and involving audiences to this new liquid paradigm.
Folch Creative-driven brand ecosystem. Acid House (creative and business innovation hub in Barcelona and Madrid), White Horse (creative production), Avanti Studio (city branding & way finding ), NOW (digital innovation and transformation), Creative Services (fashion and e-commerce), PILLS (digital education), Gallery Studio (New music formats), G.Records (Record label), Gallery (Music Innovation), Eldorado Agency (outdoor creative agency), J.Franc (3D visualization and AR/VR solutions), FFF (Digital type foundry) and Self (talent management).
Wed, Jan 17, 2024
masters’ talks
7.30 pm — Event at DHub
Open to the public
Kaave Pour, SPACE10
The New Home
The New Home
This session will highlight the home’s role in the next decade of design and technology. It will also discuss how industries will be more connected and influenced by our living spaces.
Kaave shares a decade of insights from SPACE10, envisioning new possibilities where design and technology foster a healthier, more sustainable, and inclusive society.
Kaave Pour is the Co-founder and CEO of SPACE10, a research and design lab on a mission to create a better everyday life for people and the planet. Working at the intersection of design, technology and business, he strives to create radical solutions to societal and environmental challenges. Kaave’s work includes collaborations with IKEA, Apple, UN, Harvard and MIT among others.
Much of it has been acknowledged in the press all around the world and has won numerous awards including D&AD, Webby, Dezeen and Fast Company. Furthermore, he is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer, sharing his thoughts and experiences with global brands, universities, organisations and media to encourage a curious, playful and forward-thinking approach to doing business.
SPACE10 was a research and design lab on a mission to create a better everyday life for people and planet, successfully closed September 2023 after a almost a decade of work.
We did research and design innovative solutions to some of the major societal changes expected to affect people and our planet in the years to come.
At our core, we prioritised a collaborative approach and strived to surround ourselves with people who are smarter than us. We worked with an ever-growing network of forward-thinking specialists and creatives from around the world and shared our research and ideas publicly. Alongside that, we regularly hosted exhibitions, talks, dinners and screenings to engage with people, provoke imagination, diversify our perspective and advance our mission.
SPACE10 was proudly supported by and entirely dedicated to IKEA — working as an independent research and design lab. We brought new perspectives and design new solutions that enabled IKEA to live up to their original promise of creating a better everyday life for the many people.
Wed, Dec 13, 2023
masters’ talks
7.30 pm — Event at DHub
Open to the public
Yazmany Arboleda
Color Changing Everything
At the heart of Yazmany Arboleda’s practice is the idea that art is a verb, not a noun. It is something we do, and something we see. He believes that art is a universal language of invention and agency, through which we define and redefine culture, express our shared experiences and envision all possibilities. His values driven practice centers collaboration and interdependence as a future-casting practice. The talk will explore a series of projects that showcase the evolution of his practice.
Yazmany Arboleda (b. 1981, Colombian-American) serves as the first People’s Artist for New York City at the Civic Engagement Commission and is the Founder of The People’s Creative Institute. An architect by training, Yazmany art practice fosters community connections through expansive public art initiatives. He also holds the role of Senior Artistic Advisor for the Community Art Network, He has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Yale School of Management, and the United Nations.
His artistic practice is deeply rooted in the trauma he endured when his father and uncles were assassinated in Medellin, Colombia, at the age of 11. For him, art became a sanctuary for exploration and self-discovery. It has provided him with the means to grasp his own evolving identity as a continually changing individual. His mission is to convey that art can function as a similar space of discovery and transformation for others as well. He endeavors to inspire people to recognize the potential of art for personal growth and collective understanding.
Mon, Nov 20, 2023
case studies
Natalia Santolaria, Domestic Data Streamers
Designing for the unknown
Only for MVD students
We, humans, struggle to build empathy towards large amounts of information. ¿How do we solve these challenges when the problems we face today are so inherently big, interconnected, wicked, and globalized? In this talk, we will explore some humble experiments done to overcome this lack of empathy through art, technology, and participatory experiences.
Natalia Santolaria is a creative director at Domestic Data Streamers, a storyteller who uses data as raw material. Trained in journalism and humanities, she works with a team of 25 designers, architects and technologists to create connections between information and people that trigger conversations and changes in fixed perspectives. Focused on social impact projects, she has directed campaigns and installations for organizations such as UN agencies, local governments or OXFAM. She explores how to bring interaction into the performing arts at matriu.id.
Domestic Data Streamers is an award-winning studio exploring how to express data through film, robotics, code, theater, or architecture in schools, prisons, cinemas, the streets of many cities, and even the United Nations Headquarters. They work for commercial brands and all kinds of old-school and new-kinky institutions. They truly believe data can be a real trigger of change and build bridges in a polarized society.
Nov 13 — 19, 2023
workshop
Martin Lorenz, TwoPoints.Net
Systemic Type Design
Only for MVD students
Systemic Type Design
We live in a (new) golden age of systemic type design. New technologies and easy to use programmes leveled the playfield for emerging designers and gave them the chance to experiment with new ideas. The world of display fonts has witnessed a lot of new impulses in the last years. Type has become more flexible, variable and kinetic as ever, adjusting efficiently and effectively to new communication channels.
Systemic Type Design is more than designing fonts. A type system is an efficient design tool that helps designers to design. If done well, the act of writing is the act of designing without the need to further layout the text. In this course we will develop an experimental type system that almost automatically generates fantastic design applications.
Martin Lorenz
might as well have become a cook, a comic artist or an architect, were it not for an internship at Müller+Volkmann. Lorenz studied Graphic Design at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt and the Royal Academy of Arts (KABK) in The Hague. After working four years at the design agency Hort, he moved to Barcelona to found TwoPoints.Net with Lupi Asensio and do his MA and PhD in Design Research at the UB. Lorenz has taught since 2006 for Elisava and still likes to cook.
Wed, Nov 8, 2023
case studies
Anna Berbiela, Pràctica
Pràctica: Graphic Hunting
Only for MVD students
Pràctica: Graphic Hunting
Exploring our reality allows us to understand the creative potential that lies behind everything that surrounds us; In this session we will analyse, through visualising the latest Pràctica case studies, how our environment and surroundings can become an inexhaustible source of inspiration if we really pay attention.
Anna Berbiela
Graphic designer, creative director, and illustrator based in Barcelona. Anna Berbiela is co-founder, together with Javier Arizu, Carlos Bermúdez, and Albert Porta, of the design studio Pràctica. With offices in Barcelona and New York, Pràctica believes that design it’s a process involving researching, thinking, sharing, challenging… then giving all this a definitive shape.
Pràctica is a design and identity studio based in Barcelona and New York that seeks to reveal the particular truth of each brand. By simplifying complexity and shaping concepts, creates work that makes sense.
Mon, Oct 30, 2023
case studies
Daniel Ayuso, Clase
Enea
Only for MVD students
Enea
In this session we will be able to see through the case study of a real project from the studio how a brand identity is developed and how it is strategically translated into the different communication elements on and offline to define a recognizable and transversal personality.
Daniel Ayuso is a partner and creative director at Clase studio. From 2016 to 2021 he was President of the Association of Art directors and Graphic Designers ADG FAD. He is an associate professor at the Elisava School and the UPF. His trajectory has expanded from his training in graphic design to the development of more complex Visual Identities in which communication and visual language build a brand discourse through design itself, art direction in photography or audiovisual.
Clase is a design and creative direction studio that takes culture as a basis to develop brands and visual communication. They create voices and unique languages out of the essence of every project in order to build its particular universe. From strategy to the final output, they conceive solutions that are both conceptually and visually rich.
Wed, Oct 25, 2023
masters’ talks
7.30 pm — Event at DHUB
Open to the public
Alice Rawsthorn
Design as an Attitude
What does design mean to us now? What will it mean in the near future? How can it help us to address the complex challenges of this turbulent, often terrifying time: from the climate emergency and refugee crisis, to curbing inequality, bigotry and violence, and ensuring that powerful new technologies will be used to make our lives better, not worse. Alice Rawsthorn will describe how the new generation of “attitudinal designers” are reinventing the practice and possibilities of design by using their skills, networks and resourcefulness to address these issues and to foster positive change.
Alice Rawsthorn is an award-winning design critic and author, whose books include Design as an Attitude and, most recently, Design Emergency: Building a Better Future. co-written with Paola Antonelli, senior design curator at MoMA, New York. Alice’s weekly design column for The New York Times was syndicated worldwide for over a decade. In all her work, Alice champions design’s potential as a social, political and ecological tool to foster positive change.
Born in Manchester and based in London, she is a founding member of the Writers for Liberty campaign for human rights and a cofounder, with Paola, of Design Emergency, a podcast and research platform that investigates design’s role in forging a fairer future.
