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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 /

w50 Type Out Loud. Construction

Date

May 01, 2022

Course

Participants

Supervision

The Type out loud course was accompanied by three workshops, each developed by one group of students for all the others. Under the theme of ‘Construction’, three different stations focused on systematic construction methods:

Station 1: Karl's Box
The students worked according to the morphological method of the scientist Fritz Zwicky, which was also used by the Swiss designer Karl Gerstner in the 1960s. Gerstner saw it as a kind of design vending machine, designed to help bring order to a design task by organizing disorderly thoughts on a question according to a particular system. Karl's Box offered students the opportunity to explore the possibilities of design at the word level before embarking on the graphic realization. They chose a theme and various components from Karl's box in advance and combined them. This resulted in concrete instructions for the subsequent design work. In some cases, random solutions were created, but there were also deliberate combinations. The pre-determined parameters in Karl's box thus provided the design impulses for the posters, which were then created directly on the wall with masking tape and, in some cases, further developed intuitively.

Station 2: Conditional Design
This design method was formulated by graphic designers Luna Maurer, Jonathan Puckey, Roel Wouters, and artist Edo Paulus. Together, they have developed a ‘Workbook‘ in which they invite us to try out their methods and define our own rules. Conditional Design plays with chance and generative systems in an exciting way, using current technologies. It is a game method that focuses on human interaction. We invited the students to try out and apply two methods developed by Studio Moniker. They worked together with clearly defined design rules and playful instructions. It became clear that the process became the product, and everyone enjoyed being surprised and inspired by the unusual and unpredictable results.

Station 3: Triangle Circle Square
During the Bauhaus workshop, participants practiced working with form and free space. The aim was to compose pictures with the few materials available (only circles, squares, and triangles, of course). The participants placed a chosen shape on the paper one after the other, without coordinating with each other: Talking was not allowed.