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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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p195 Images for Political Battle

The project is based on the design and concept of Isotype, the Viennese method of pictorial statistics developed by Otto Neurath and Gerd Arntz from 1925 onwards. Isotype is an internationally understandable sign and symbol language that makes complex content accessible to people with low levels of education through simple graphic representations. It provides insights into economic relationships and offers information about societal, social, and political circumstances. With the help of figurative constructivism, Neurath and Arntz wanted to have a direct impact on society. Arntz, in particular, always took a critical view of the social connections between capitalism and war. In terms of content, the student addressed the need for a united working class in this project. This is based on the theory that workers' struggles must be connected globally. It needs a strong local base in order to spread internationally and destroy capitalism. The struggle for liberation is international and can only be fought together, as a united class. This requires not only solidarity on a theoretical basis, but also militant practice on a supranational level. “At that time, there was indeed still hope that the upper class would be swept away, and this hope rested on the workers.” 1 He wanted to create ‘teaching images’ that indicated the next tasks, ‘barracks occupations, factory occupations, and such things,’2 said Gerd Arntz in an interview in 1980.

  1. Dorn, Anja. Die Gesellschaft der Zeichen: Piktogramme, Lebenszeichen, Emojis. Freiburg: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2021.
  2. ibid.