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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 / Publications /

pb1 ExPo. Experiment + Position. Test Protocol

Authors

Akiko Baldridge-Hohn Franzisca Krapp Godje Loof Jane Froh Lisa Lenkersdorf Lukas Besenfelder Mustafa Zammar Rebecca Söhlke Robin Detterbeck Saskia Kühnemund Sebastian Hagen Ziemann

Term

2021

Course

c8 ExPo. Experiment + Position

Supervision

Book details

Editorial staff: Heike Grebin (ed.), Akiko Baldridge-Hohn, Lukas Besenfelder, Robin Detterbeck, Jane Froh, Franzisca Krapp, Saskia Kühnemund, Lisa Lenkersdorf, Godje Loof, Rebecca Söhlke, Mustafa Zammar, Sebastian Ziemann
Design: Saskia Kühnemund, Lisa Lenkersdorf, Lukas Besenfelder with the collaboration of all students
Printing: Heenemann, Berlin
Printing: Grammlich, Pliezhausen
124 pages, 24 × 17 cm
50 copies for study purposes
HAW Hamburg 2021

The course ExPo. Experiment + Position functioned as an experimental laboratory in which students explored whether—and how—aesthetic and ethical positions can be developed methodically. To this end, selected design methodologies were examined, ranging from the systematization of design in the 1960s to the postmodern critiques of the 1970s and contemporary approaches today.
In three changing experimental collectives—Weltentwerfen (Project the World), Play the System, and Express Yourself—students tested these methodologies through their own design projects. The widely varying research processes and outcomes are documented in this multifaceted experimental report.