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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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p79 Channeling McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan is regarded as the founder of modern media studies. He made almost prophetic predictions about today's media environment and its effects. The starting point of this work is a fictional interview in the American magazine 'Wired’ from 1996, 16 years after McLuhan's death.1 In it, Gary Wolf asks McLuhan about his views on our digital present. The design of the pamphlets moves between necromancy and the media world, with a sombre black for the covers and, in keeping with the aesthetics of the digital world, a monospaced font (reference: coding) and the blue highlight color (reference: hyperlinks). The booklet is made up of five A3 sheets nested inside each other and held together with an elastic band. In order to read the entire interview, the reader must engage with the publication form and make their own connections.

  1. Gary Wolf. Channeling McLuhan. Wired: 1996