Play the System
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is a platform for parametric design in graphic design. It documents the work of students and teachers at the Department of Design at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW), who are investigating the significance of the system as a conceptual model and design method under the title “Parametric Design in Graphic Design.”

Design is less about intuitive, even ingenious “strokes of genius” and more about a holistic and rule-based (systemic and systematic) process of gaining knowledge and shaping form. It is becoming increasingly important to be able to design dynamic systems that both guide and inspire the design process.

Parametric design refers to this design in and of systems—with rules, their modes of operation, and systematic manipulability. The research project, led by Prof. Heike Grebin, is an integral part of teaching and aims to raise awareness of design as a performative process.

Play the System brings together selected study projects in which the system plays an important role as a design method – whether analog or digital. The works are created in a fruitful symbiosis of theory, design, and technology. Socially relevant issues and positions from philosophy, art, and avant-garde design from around 1900 to the present day are repeatedly discussed.

Play the System is an invitation to become aware of the systemic competence of graphic design and to gain the maturity to use the tools of digital design critically.

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Play the System Courses /

c14 Humboldt Cosmos

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Books are the ultimate example of parametric design. A book is an efficiently structured system that offers readers andcasual browsers multiple ways of accessing and contextualizing content. Even in the digital age, it remains an essential medium for preserving and communicating knowledge. Especially as an exhibition catalogue, a book documents complex yet temporary collections of ideas and objects.
In this study project, the students developed alternative book designs using material from the German Historical Museum’s exhibition Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt–A Portrait of the Brothers as Europeans in the Context of Their Time (2021). Inspired by the Humboldt brothers’ scientific methods, they explored the book as a creative space for the transmission of knowledge.
Drawing from both contemporary and historical design principles—and with access to original Humboldt editions from the Carlos R. Linga collection—diverse concepts were created that reinterpret their world for today.
Thanks go to Inka Linz and David Blankenstein (German Historical Museum, Berlin) and Antje Theise and Wiebke von Deylen (Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library Hamburg).