The Journey of United Mazes of America: From Concept to Creation
It’s been a while since my last blog post—over a year, in fact! But it’s for a good reason. In much of that time, I’ve been completely immersed in the creation of my latest project: United Mazes of America. What started as a simple idea has now become a full-fledged book that I’m thrilled to announce is officially printed and available for sale!
So, what’s the story behind United Mazes of America?
How It All Began
In 2019, almost by accident, I began drawing the U.S. state of Maine as a maze. It wasn’t initially part of a larger plan, but as I completed that first maze, I realized the potential for something bigger. Before I knew it, I was working on mazes for all 50 states. Then the pandemic hit, and United Mazes of America became my creative anchor. Each state maze became a puzzle within itself, incorporating elements like state symbols, landmarks, and fun facts about each state’s history.
Kickstarter: Bringing the Project to Life
In mid-2024, I decided to take the leap and launch a Kickstarter campaign to bring United Mazes of America to life as a published book. I was blown away by the response—the project was fully funded in just 8 hours and ended up raising 350% of its goal, thanks to the amazing support of 45 backers!
This journey taught me so much about community, creativity, and perseverance. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who believed in this project and made it possible.
The Book is Now Available for Sale!
After months of preparation, design, and printing, I’m excited to share that the United Mazes of America book is now officially available for purchase on my website! The book features:
113 pages of unique mazes, each designed in the shape of one of the 50 U.S. states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
Fun state facts, symbols, and landmarks that make each page an educational journey as well as a puzzle.
High-quality 80# paper for durability and a premium feel.
Whether you’re a puzzle lover, geography enthusiast, or looking for a fun and interactive book for your family, this book offers a unique way to explore the United States.
Lessons Learned and What’s Next
Of course, no project is without its challenges. As I flipped through the first printed copies, I noticed small things—like a typo on the Arkansas page (whoops!) and details I wish I could tweak. But rather than beat myself up over it, I’ve taken these as lessons I can apply to future projects.
I’m already starting to think about the next book, and I can’t wait to dive into new ideas. But for now, I’m excited to share United Mazes of America with all of you.
Get Your Copy Today
If you’ve been following along with the project or if this is your first time hearing about it, I’d love for you to check out the book. You can order it directly from my website here: www.mazedojo.me/store.
Thank you all for your support over the years, and I hope you enjoy solving these mazes as much as I enjoyed creating them!
Store is now Live!
Check out https://www.mazedojo.me/store.
I finally managed to build a store that I’m happy with. After experimenting with several different platforms and having numerous test prints created, I settled on using Printify for fulfillment.
Not every maze is available; there are quite a few that just didn’t make the cut. Some had low resolution, which should be an easy fix since they were all originally drawn in 300dpi. If there is one missing that you just have to have, let me know and I’ll see what I can do!
NFT'd!
Maze NFTs! Maze NFTs! Maze NFTs!
I had to jump on the NFT craze and share each of my State and Country mazes as NFTs on OpenSea.
Country mazes and State mazes have been divided into their own Collections. Links are below:
https://opensea.io/collection/worldmazes Country Mazes
https://opensea.io/collection/unitedmazes State Mazes
The State Mazes are a complete collection; I doubt Country Mazes will ever be completed with all ~200 countries in the world, but I will continue adding Countries and subregions/provinces as I create them. As of this post, I’m not drawing any currently - if you want a maze of your favorite country or province, drop me a note and it will be the next one I make.
Now is your chance to OWN the digital version of your favorite country or state!
Maze2020 Book
Several of my State mazes are featured in an art book collab with 18 different maze artists. The Kickstarter campaign was just fully funded yesterday! Check out the link below to learn all about it.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maze2020/maze2020
Alaska Solution
Just one possible route. This mazes stretches from the extreme southeast corner all the way to the end of the Aleutian Islands.
Here’s a fun fact: If you overlaid Alaska (Including the Aleutian Islands) over the lower 48, it would stretch from coast to coast!
California Maze
The California maze is done, which means the ‘lower 48’ are all finished! Just two more mazes to go.
California’s maze starts in the upper left, near Oregon, and ends near San Diego. The white lines are the pathways! Not in between like other mazes. But getting from A to Z is only half the challenge. Can you find and make it to each of the following?
Treble Clef
Dollar Sign
Golden Gate Bridge
Grapes
Floppy Disk
Giant Redwood
Garlic
Camping Tent
T-Rex
Hollywood Sign
Palm Trees
Music Notes
and Airplane
Quarantined At Home?
Enjoy these three full size, printable mazes while you’re stuck at home. Follow this link, right click and open the images in new tabs and then you can save them to your PC. https://imgur.com/a/4w8c2PJ . Don’t save the images from this blog, they’re compressed and I haven’t figured out how to fix it. The link has the full size printable versions.
Follow Link first, https://imgur.com/a/4w8c2PJ then right click on Image and Open In a New Tab and then you can download it to your PC to print. Lines can cross over/under each other for this maze.
Follow Link first, https://imgur.com/a/4w8c2PJ then right click on Image and Open In a New Tab and then you can download it to your PC to print. Lines can cross over/under each other for this maze.
No ‘formal’ start or finish for Indiana. Instead, try to make it to each color dot! Represented is: Notre Dame (Purple), Purdue (Green), Ball State (Orange), Indianapolis schools - IUPUI, Butler, Marian, or your school of choice… (Yellow), Indiana State University (Light Blue), IU (red), and Vincennes University (Dark Teal). Sorry if I missed your school but the list of schools in Indiana is long and I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
Follow Link first, https://imgur.com/a/4w8c2PJ then right click on Image and Open In a New Tab and then you can download it to your PC to print.
Washington State Maze
I skipped over about 13 states and went straight for the NW coast. This design lets the state and national forests/parks come through the background, and the major highways are highlighted with thin yellow lines.
This starts on I-5 (southwest corner, coming in from Oregon) and the end is the town of Wenatchee, smack dab in the center.
Just one possible route! This has several potential solutions
More Solutions...
I’m nearly caught up on all of the missing solutions. Still working on Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Wisconsin is a doozy, but I’ll get there. Anyway, in case you were needing solutions for the states below, here you go:
Illinois
Missouri
Iowa
North Dakota
Minnesota
North Dakota
This was brutal. I’m sure it’s a lovely state but my God it was a drag to draw. It was stalled between April and October and I finally finished tonight.
I haven’t tried to solve it yet- that will take some time. Let me know what you think! I’m a little rusty- I’m hoping South Dakota goes smoother.
That’s the state bird, by the way.
More Mazes Soon...
It has been a very full and BUSY summer for me, and I can’t bear to stay inside and draw mazes when the weather is nice. It’s definitely a rainy/cold activity for me - and that’s true for solving mazes too!
Also - I’m drawing the Dakotas right now and… I’m not going to lie, it’s really boring. At least with eastern states I have all sorts of roads and landscape features I can work with! I might try mixing up my style on the western states to spice it up a bit.
Anyway - have no fear! More mazes are coming in the fall. As usual, just shoot me a message if you have any questions.
IU vs Purdue
I couldn’t draw a maze of my home state without giving it a little extra attention! I ended up making two versions - one with a start in Bloomington (home of Indiana University) and one that starts in West Lafayette (Purdue University). Both of course are bathed in school colors. The finish is Indianapolis. Which do you prefer?
Black & Gold for Purdue
Cream & Crimson for IU
Halfway There! Kentucky and Tennessee Solutions
Kentucky is the 25th state I’ve completed so far! Just 25 more to go. March was super productive, finishing 12 last month alone! I might just have this project finished by Summer at this rate!
The Kentucky maze starts off in the little exclave called the Kentucky Bend, cut off from the rest of the state by the Mississippi. There are multiple routes you can take, and there is a secondary goal. The golden dot near the race horse is Fort Knox! Be sure to stop by and make a withdrawal. The finish is in the far eastern point of the state - which other than being the easternmost point, doesn’t appear to have anything special about it. The satellite view on Google Maps shows the area more or less surrounded by mountaintop removal mines.
The Tennessee maze starts off in Memphis and ends up in the northeastern most point of the state. I tried keeping this maze relatively bare of voids and geographical features. Somehow that made this extremely difficult - it took me forever to trace a solution, I kept getting lost. I ended up filling in dead-ends until the solution finally presented itself.
Alabama, Mississippi, & Louisiana Solutions
We’re nearly halfway through the US States! 22 finished altogether. (and I can just copy/paste Wyoming and Colorado, right?) I thought the colors of these three turned out excellent (see the main page for the final versions).
Each of these are river-heavy in their designs (for obvious reasons with Mississippi and Louisiana). With Alabama, I opted to follow along the Tennessee and Alabama rivers, instead of following highways.
Also - the underwater feel to the background of Louisiana is purely coincidental and not a commentary on Katrina. I was going for a water/swampy coloring and that’s just how it turned out.
Arkansas is up next - what color does that evoke? I’m leaning toward green.
This maze starts and ends with the rivers - starting in the upper right (Tennessee River) and ending in Mobile Bay (Alabama River).
Start on the outskirts of Memphis (I-55) and end on your way to New Orleans (I-59)
Start in Shreveport and end in the Big Easy!
Florida + Solution
TIL Florida means “Land of Flowers” in Spanish. The goal here is to make your way from Pensacola all the way to Key West, and maybe swing by Disneyworld along the way too!
The blue pathways ended up being a little brighter than I expected - I’m sure I’ll tone it down for the coffee-table book :)
Featured on Puzzle Prime
Maze Dojo was recently featured on Puzzle Prime! So far, the classic maze “Black Hole Sun” from 2008 has been posted, with more to come. Take a look here: https://www.puzzleprime.com/author/ben-uelk/
Puzzle Prime is full of great riddles, mazes, brain teasers, and much much more.
Ohio + Solution
I tried mixing up the overall maze design with Ohio, this time following more of a grid pattern instead of my usual whatever-I-feel-like/squiggly intestines. It might make things a little harder - the thing about drawing these from start to finish is every time you ‘branch’, it makes it easier to trace back from the finish. With the grid pattern, that trick might be harder to do. Let me know what you think!
The start for this is in Columbus - your goal is to make it all the way to Cedar Point in Sandusky for some R&R!
