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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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w34 ParaMat (Karl’s Box)

Karl Gerstner's morphological box was the source of ideas for the ParaMat workshop. In the collective design process, the demand for a specific (good) design faded, and all students began to experiment freely and playfully. In eight hours, 24 collectively designed posters were created: three working groups of eight students each designed eight posters in eight rounds.

Each student spontaneously chose one of the more or less meaningful themes (anarchy, XXL, chaos, YouTube, intoxication, etc.) to start the design process. After each round, the poster design was passed on to a member of the group in a clockwise direction. The designs were developed using a set of parameters such as font, relationship, and color. Nothing from the previous round could be deleted, only changed or added.

Everyone had only half an hour to react to the previous design and create a new impulse. At the end of the workshop, everyone was involved in every poster in their own group.