Philipp Doringer: Wallpaper* Next Generation 2022

A map with a fold in the middle and green lines across the map area lying on a blue surface.

All images: ‘The Imprecision in Precision’, by Philipp Doringer

(Image credit: TBC)

Austrian designer Philipp Doringer took a master’s degree in Information Design at Design Academy Eindhoven. He is currently working at Studio Joost Grootens in Amsterdam, run by the self-taught graphic designer who also helms the Eindhoven course.

‘This was always my dream collaboration, so I am quite happy with that,’ says Doringer. ‘I'd like to work on my own one day and open a studio together with a designer friend of mine.’

A green book with white text on it on a square white platform.

His graduation project book, ‘The Imprecision in Precision’, currently awaits a publisher. Doringer’s work focuses on cartographic design, using maps to tell stories as well as highlight their potential for exacerbating conflict and chaos. ‘The Imprecision in Precision’ brings together every border in the world, ‘a growing archive of every line ever drawn to represent borders collected in browsable files, and a world map depicting territorial thinking taken to an extreme’. His intention was to highlight how two-dimensional lines can never capture the intricacies and complexities of a three-dimensional world. ‘In fact, [it] adds more chaos, conflict, uncertainty and imprecision,’ he says.

An earlier project, ‘Jewish Vienna’, is a richly researched cartography of Vienna’s Second District, home of its Jewish community. Ghostly imprints on the surface of the map reveal the scope of the deportations during the Nazi era, with old and new information juxtaposed to provide a historical comparison of then and now.

An open book on a blue surface with a picture of a car on the left page and a map on the right page.

Another student project, the ‘Atlas Of No Direction Home’, is an obsessive gazetteer of ‘all the locations relevant to Bob Dylan’s career’. The project mixes maps with lists and coordinates, and Doringer’s talent for organising information is evident on every page as he brings together ‘all the places mentioned in [Dylan’s] songs, the towns where his studio albums were recorded, the venues of his tours, and other places that played an important role in his life’.

Dream collaborator: Joost Grootens.

INFORMATION

philippdoringer.com

Our Next Generation showcase of outstanding new talents appears in the January 2022 issue of Wallpaper* (W*273). Subscribe today!

Jonathan Bell has written for Wallpaper* magazine since 1999, covering everything from architecture and transport design to books, tech and graphic design. He is now the magazine’s Transport and Technology Editor. Jonathan has written and edited 15 books, including Concept Car Design, 21st Century House, and The New Modern House. He is also the host of Wallpaper’s first podcast.