Design for Uncharted Territories
Full time or for the shop, including a $1000 Challenge
Uncharted Territories is growing. I want to make it better in all dimensions, and a key one is visuals and user experience. I obsess about it, but I’m not a designer, so I’m looking for the best ones to make Uncharted Territories products both incredibly usable and stunningly inspiring. If you are a designer or know one, I want to share two ways in which you can help do that: Work with us full time, or make designs for our merchandise shop.
1. Design for Our Merchandise Shop
You might not want to work for us full time, or you’re more on the graphic side of design? Perfect! We’re building a shop for Uncharted Territories merchandise, and we want to fill it with some of the best items you can find anywhere. That means we need designs, and the best ones will probably come from you, the people who know Uncharted Territories the best.
Every week, I spend hours reworking graphs and generating compelling images to illustrate the ideas I’m writing about.
Humans have absorbed visual information for millions of years, but we’ve been reading for just a few thousand. We’re much better at understanding through visuals than words. The right visual can make a complex idea instantly clear. My challenge each week is to take real information and make it stimulating, exciting, and accessible.
Today, I pass that challenge on to you. I’d love for you to take an idea from Uncharted Territories and turn it into a poster. Something that will reframe how people understand how the world works, that is at the same time so beautiful and inspiring that people will want to hang it on their wall.
For that, you have two ways to participate: a competition, or an application.
1.1. Poster Design Competition
The brief is simple: Design a poster based on Uncharted Territories that would be a talking piece in any room.
I’m offering a $1,000 grand prize to the image that best conveys a map, chart, idea, or full article in an interesting and visually stunning way. The best examples will tell a story that will have visitors staring at it and asking where it’s from.
Specs
$1,000 prize, open to everyone worldwide
Submit as many entries as you like
Choose any UT article, map, or idea as your subject
A2 / 18×24", submit a screen-resolution preview: JPG or PNG, max 10 MB
All entries will be displayed publicly, unless you opt out
I will select the winner, heavily based on community opinion
Deadline: 22 July 2026, winner announced 5 August
Submit your best design via the Competition landing page. The winning entry will receive $1,000 cash, with their poster becoming the flagship product in a new Uncharted Territories shop.
Public commentary will be open for the length of the competition and for two weeks beyond. I’ll highlight a few of the most immediately impressive pieces in the newsletter and on socials as the competition runs, with credit given to their creators.
Viewers can like and comment on their favorites but the final say will be mine. I want to know which designs resonate but I don’t want it to be a popularity contest.
The competition isn’t only for current readers. If you know any designers who you think would be good at this kind of visual storytelling, please forward them this article or the Competition homepage. All IP stays with the designer for artworks I don’t end up using.
What if I love more than one design?
Then I’ll pay for the others too!
I’m not saying I’ll only pay $1,000 for one poster. I’m saying I’ll pay at least $1,000 for one poster. But if we have lots of amazing posters, and we’d like to put them all on the site, I’ll happily pay for more posters!
1.2. Share Your Portfolio, Concepts, or Ideas
Not everybody can spend time working on a poster without a guaranteed payment. I get it. So beyond the competition, I’d like to commission designs for use in Uncharted Territories posters and merchandising.
Simply head to the competition page, scroll to the Direct Applications section, and tell me why you think we should work together: Maybe that means your portfolio and your ideas for what you’d like to do for Uncharted Territories, maybe something else.
I’m really excited to see what you come up with!
2. Work with Us
I’m building a small team of developers: With AI, I think just three are enough to build incredible tools. I’ve already hired our first vibe-coder / engineer, and we’re building so fast you’re soon going to see amazing products. But neither of us are designers, so we’re looking for our second vibe-coder—a person who can complement our skillsets, so I’d like this person to come from the world of design.
So if you:
Have experience as a UX/UI designer
Have great aesthetic taste and a strong sense of what’s usable
Love the Uncharted Territories asesthetic, but want to make it 10x better
Have jumped into the world of AI and have been vibe-coding your own apps
Then go to this page and join the expedition!
Know somebody who could fit the description? Send them this page!
I actually like the warm countries poster. Tells a story quickly. In 30 seconds I would get an entire article worth of info, and in a format which is easier to remember.
Tomas, I'm not sure you can do what you want without using video. It is far more powerful in communicating information of all kinds, as I'm sure you know. BTW - I love this Substack. I've followed your posts since March, 2020.