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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 /

w45 System Font

Date

Nov 07, 2010

Course

Participants

Supervision

Is a basic knowledge of basil.js sufficient to recognize the potential added value of the programming language for design processes? The automated generation of variations within a regulated experimental field is tested in a playful manner. A series of variants is designed for each letter of the word ‘system.’ The individual forms simultaneously become elements that can be recombined within the word structure.

Form six working groups. Each group is assigned a letter of the word ‘system’.

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Design five variations of this letter using the basil.js programming language and the InDesign layout program. You are free to choose how you set the parameters for font, size, positioning, and effects.

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Run the script repeatedly and print out five design variations.

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Hang the printouts in a grid so that the word ‘system’ can be read five times side by side. Within the vertically arranged letter variations, positions can now be swapped to test any number of word images.