Typography (BA)

IG: erg_type - IG: erg_typographie_bac3 Teachers: Manuela Dechamps Otamendi, Marie-Christophe Lambert

Bachelor 1, 2 & 3

In B1, A common core is organized into 6 Modules spread over the 2 quadrimesters that all students of the Pole follow at specific times of the calendar. These Modules offer learning in order to raise awareness of different practices and ensure a series of basic achievements common to all the Orientations of the Cluster. In the second semester, the student follows his Orientation linked to his choice at the beginning of the year and presents a jury which testifies both to his career and the choice of his Orientation.

Typographic Design oriented module

°Slow lettering

During the first semester, the student chooses his Orientation (Graphic Design, Digital Design or Typographic Design) at which he/she adds a module of their choice from their Orientation or one of the two other Orientations of the Media Pole. The educational advantage of these Modules accessible to both B2 and B3 students is that they ensure verticality. The two elements (3h Orientation and 3h Module) together create the 6h Orientation.

→ Example: A student in Typographic Design can therefore decide to choose the Module linked to his Orientation (Module tinted Typographic Design) or choose to take a Module rather tinted Graphic Design or Digital Design.

In the second term, the Modules give way to Orientation, which starts at 6 a.m.

Some courses are given at the same time to B2 and B3 students and change every other year so that B3 students do not have the same course menu twice.

IG: erg_typo_bac_2 — IG: erg_typographie_bac3 —

The Typographic Design workshop proposes to question and experiment with the morphology of a text and the architecture of the page in a physical or digital editorial context. The projects cross multiple cultural contexts such as music, cinema, literature, painting, … Each new textual content prompts an exploration of typography from a historical, cultural and formal angle. Analyzing and questioning what typography is today, the orientation invites the student to question its codes and applications, to relay content and to develop a critical and personal view.

In Bachelor 2, the year is built around several exercises linked to each other. These question the sign, the typography, the layout and the layout and are introduced by documented presentations. The course considers research through analysis (observation of existing editions with the Competition of the Most Beautiful Swiss Books) and that of argumentation (questioning the contents and approaching the concepts of a dramaturgy). The workshop also tackles the question of communication and that of the installation of spoken books exhibited each year in the gallery of the erg. This exhibition is designed and produced in collaboration with the Bachelor 3 Typographic Design studio.

In Bachelor 3, the workshop proposes to experiment with the text in a mainly editorial context where all the components – typographic choice, format, grid, structure, materiality… – result from choices induced by a specific and singular bias. We will analyze books and learn the rules and uses of typographic composition in order to master them and be able to appropriate and reinterpret them. As time goes on, the exercises proposed will be more and more open so as to invite the student to explore themes and mediums resulting from his own interests and thus develop a look, a critical sense. This openness also offers the possibility of creating links with the various theoretical and practical courses preparing the student to acquire greater autonomy with a view to a possible Master's degree.