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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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p196 Imbalance

The imbalance between women and men in the design community is being addressed ever more loudly and forcefully, and initiatives are being taken to improve it. As a design student, it is almost impossible not to follow this discourse, which is so omnipresent and ultimately also affects your own future. Nevertheless, it is hardly noticed when no work by women is shown in lectures on Bauhaus or Swiss Style. It is no news that in the first half of the 20th century, women had limited opportunities to enter a design profession and gain public attention. But today, despite all the liberalization and digitalization, it's still an issue. Seriously? In the poster series, I have collected positions that address the situation of women in the design industry. From Walter Gropius, who announced in 1919 that there would be “no differences between the fair sex and the stronger sex” at the Bauhaus, only to throw his progressive stance overboard a short time later, after significantly more women than men began studying at the Bauhaus. Or the editors of Notamuse, whose book highlights the work of contemporary female graphic designers and conducts interviews with them about the perception of women in the design scene.