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 /

c29 Style System Methods 1.0

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Aesthetic positions and programmed typography: It is not only mathematicians, musicians, or philosophers who have always been interested in systems, but also designers. Is it possible to translate individual creative ideas into a systematic design process? What is the relationship between system and design?

According to which rules and principles do individual things form an organized whole? Is it possible to influence these principles and use them in the design process? Can a great poster or layout really be created at the push of a button? Aesthetic, philosophical, and design-theoretical perspectives from the 1960s to the present (including those of John Cage, Georges Perec and Oulipo, Karl Gerstner, Studio Moniker) inspired these typographic and graphic design experiments.

Each working group will implement the insights gained from the research in a workshop, providing fellow students with inspiration for their own design process. Their awareness of parametric design methods is sharpened under various aspects such as language/art, philosophy/design and typography/image. Through the combination of practical laboratory work, design and theory, the students are able to develop independent conceptual and design approaches.