Play the System
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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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Play the System Projects /

p187 Humboldt Catalog

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The Humboldt brothers were intellectual travelers, always in search of new knowledge and often far ahead of their time. Their minds were constantly at work, thoughts were written down, new insights were noted and added to as inserts. Inspired by this, the design concept of the catalogue book is characterized by inserts, insertions, and rotations of text and illustrations. To emphasize the topicality of the Humboldt brothers' ideas, their quotations are juxtaposed with photographs from the present day. The choice of blue as the color of the prize is a tribute to Schloss Tegel, the place of their childhood and youth, and the origin of their spirit of research.