Located in the heart of the town, in an imposing town house, the ESAL takes up a major place in the cultural landscape of Épinal. It is the fruit of a close collaboration between the museum – musée de l’Image and the printing workshop - Imagerie in Épinal as well as a handful of companies which work in the digital image sector. Since 1966, the École Supérieure d’Arts de Lorraine has a three year course at the end of which its students are awarded a National Diploma in Arts Expression Design with the particularity of being the only school in France to offer the option "image and narration".
Students are led to explore the relationship between text and images through personal projects, thesis, workshops and exhibitions. However, training only makes sense if it faces the current demands of the world of creation, production and diffusion. As such, the ESAL supports its students in the professional field, encouraging them to get involved in concrete projects such as the typographic animation of the local television channel - Vosges Television or on the signage for the town of Épinal.
The quality of its teaching has allowed more than 85% of graduates from the art school to find a job in a sector of activity related to their studies such as liberal arts, graphic communication, audio visual production, etc. Beyond that, the ESAL is based on a philosophy of sharing its knowledge as conveyed by its director Etienne Thery: "from the moment we enter a school we are always going to come back to it again, better and stronger. We are going to become more open minded, keeping in contact with the network, never isolating ourselves, all this to nourish a future project and give back what we have received. Nothing belongs to us”.
This alchemy continues to bear fruit and has allowed many of its alumni to take the steps to success. We could also quote Zoé Thouron published by Dargaud and Casteraman, Marianne Mispelaëre (Grand Prix of the Tokyo Salon-Palais 2017) or Julien Bisaro awarded worldwide for his animations.
