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 Workshops /

w21 Kinetic Typographic

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In the Kinetic Typography workshop, part of the Hands on Tools series, surprising typographic compositions were created through layering and variation. The aim was to explore new design possibilities and spaces through analog work. At the beginning, participants were given their materials: transparencies, printed texts, and masking tape. A folded worksheet explained the course of the workshop and the tasks.

The selected and printed texts came from the French group Oulipo, which, since the 1960s has been experimenting with self-imposed writing rules in order to create new forms of literature through restrictions. Here we see a parallel to our concept: We want to restrict ourselves through the analog space and see what possibilities this opens up.