Sandro Bocola was born in Trieste, Italy in 1931 and grew up in Italy, Libya and Switzerland. After studying for one and a half years at the School for Arts and Crafts in Basel, Bocola started a career as an artist. In 1955 he moved to Barcelona, where he temporarily gave up painting to work as a commercial graphic designer. During a ten-year stay in Paris and his moving in 1969, together with his family, to Zürich, Bocola was simultaneously working as graphic designer and artist.