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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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w49 Type and Politics

Designer Golnar Kat Rahmani gives us a fascinating insight into Arabic and Persian typography in her workshop Type & Politics. Political instability, religious conflicts, and wars in the Middle East have shaped how Arabic script is perceived in the West—it often appears foreign, exotic, or even threatening. In the workshop, we learn to understand the fundamental principles of Arabic script. We design the phrase Woman, Life, Freedom—the slogan of the feminist movement in Iran—and print our designs on the Risograph. Inspired by Golnar’s activism, we want to use our typographic studies, displayed at the university, to help free Arabic script from negative associations within Western culture.