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 /

p204 Is It Perhaps Cursed

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In four sessions, the designer explored grid, transformation, poetry, and sound. In the first session, an analog poster was created, inspired by Müller-Brockmann’s Beethoven poster, based on a radial grid that combined order and dynamism. Digitally, letters built from grid modules were animated until they dissolved into illegibility. In the second session, she worked with mesh fabric, stencils, and light, producing textures and shadows; digitally, random typographic shifts generated moving compositions. The third session featured an analog poster with cut and displaced lettering that disrupted the rhythm, while the digital version employed loud colors and strong animation. In the fourth session, she combined variable fonts with audio distortion, resulting in overlays, blurriness, and fragmented motion shaping the poster.