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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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p418 World of Spare Parts

The World of spare parts is a world of incredible possibilities. Do we lose something? Does something break? Do we need an upgrade? Here we can find a replacement for everything! For both material and human losses. In our world of excess and sensory overload, it is not at all difficult to satisfy our desires. But is everything replaceable? And is everything we replace really replaced? If we pay attention, we notice the differences: We differentiate very well between what we have already experienced and the value of the substitute. Nevertheless, we are constantly on the lookout for a replacement: perhaps it is even better than what we had before? The concept of ‘replacement’ creeps through our lives in a variety of ways. We realize this far too rarely.