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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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p393 Typographic coalition

Bundestag election 2017: three parties fail to reach an agreement to form a coalition. Questions arise over a beer in the evening: Have you read the election manifestos? What exactly does it actually say? Where and how much do the individual parties actually differ? We quickly came up with the idea of comparing the election manifestos typographically. The three Jamaica parties, CDU/CSU, the Green party, and the FDP, were placed next to each other, and the topics of work, refugees, and digitalization were highlighted with colored dots. Incidentally, it became clear that the Green party has the longest election manifesto and the CDU a surprisingly short one.