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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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Quattro Formaggi is a work of literature based on Giovanni Boccaccio's Il Decamerone. In his work, Boccaccio tells the story of ten men and women who flee the plague in Florence in 1348 to the countryside, where they tell each other stories every day to pass the time. The Covid pandemic has put us in a similar situation, and together we have each come up with a story about love, religion, the future, and preserve every day for twelve days. What is special about the texts is the way they are written, which changes from day to day. In this way, the literary volume offers a small collection of texts, some written in analog form and some generated with computer-aided tools.