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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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p163 Harmony of Forms

Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) was a German chemist and Nobel Prize winner. He was one of the natural scientists who dedicated himself to the fundamentals of visual design and strongly influenced the protagonists of modernism. Ostwald developed a fundamental theory of colors and the harmony of forms. His work Harmony of Forms, in which he systematically examines the laws of harmonious forms, is based on the credo Lawfulness equals harmony—a theorem of old master builders—and a thought by Goethe: "And only the law can give us freedom.” The structure of this new edition of Harmony of forms corresponds to that of the 1924 edition. The book is divided into eight chapters: Spatial Harmony, Lines, Lichens, Bands, Unlimited Surfaces, Limited Surfaces, Pictorial Art, and Body Forms. Wilhelm Ostwald's explanations are supported by 106 illustrations in the text. The Klang MT font is used for the headings. Its handcrafted, calligraphic formal language is reminiscent of the aesthetics of the turn of the century. The markup colour red also creates a historical reference. URW Grotesk is used for the body text, its dark typeface reflecting the constructivist momentum of the time. Overall, the design experiments with a historicizing, bourgeois look, which is broken up again by the constructed type area and the large white space. The systematically constructed patterns for the chapter dividers are based on the combination of various regularities that Ostwald demonstrates in the book.