Lucerne School of Design, Film and Art

The Lucerne School of Design, Film and Art traces its origins to 1877 as the Lucerne School of Arts and Crafts and functions today as a constituent school of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Hochschule Luzern). Based at the Viscosistadt campus in Emmenbrücke—a converted industrial monofilament factory—the school provides open, production-oriented workshops and studios that accommodate both analog fabrication and digital media workflows.

Animation Pedagogy and Production Pathways

The school's animation training prioritizes foundational principles and narrative development ahead of software mechanics. In the Bachelor of Arts in Animation, initial coursework focuses on drawing, movement studies, thumbnail storyboarding, the twelve principles of animation, line testing, and physical puppet fabrication. As students advance, they channel these core disciplines into dedicated pathways in 2D animation, 3D CGI, or stop motion.

Production takes place in dedicated studio facilities equipped with greenscreens, digital manufacturing labs, Dragonframe-assisted motion-control stop-motion rigs, and sound mixing suites. Practical digital workflows are taught through a progressive pipeline incorporating TVPaint for 2D hand-drawn sequences, Blender for 3D modeling and animation, After Effects and DaVinci Resolve for compositing and finishing, Reaper for audio work, and Houdini for procedural visual effects and simulations.

Interdisciplinary Game and Interaction Design

Through the Bachelor and Master in Digital Ideation programs, offered jointly with the School of Computer Science and Information Technology, the curriculum connects design students with computer science cohorts. Students split instructional time between the design campus in Emmenbrücke and the computer science campus in Rotkreuz.

In shared project modules such as Game Studio 1, multidisciplinary teams build playable vertical slices using game engines like Unity. This collaborative framework requires design-focused students to work directly within the functional constraints of game code and UI systems, while technical students address interface design, player experience, and visual aesthetics.

Advanced Study and Applied Research

At the graduate level, Master in Animation and Master in Design students participate in applied research alongside their studio work. These programs incorporate real-world briefs, collaborative design sprints, and research initiatives with external cultural institutions, tech start-ups, and industry partners, preparing graduates for professional production roles across moving-image and interactive entertainment pipelines.