I love to make maze art. I have found my niche with maze art of buildings and signs. I have experimented with a few other ideas that I will list below, but they are not my go-to. I think about what subjects to make mazes of a lot and below is a list of some of my ideas. Some of these are things you have most likely thought of and others might be considered ‘out there’. I’m just here to spark an idea in you that may not even be on the page. Maybe it inspires some new maze art techniques that advance the possibilities of what can be done.
12 Maze Art ideas
1 - Landscape Mazes
I have experimented with this a few times. I think my takes on landscape mazes have been average. For me I have trouble ‘locating’ the maze in the landscape if that makes sense. A landscape of nature - a lake, mountain, a forest all seem interesting. A natural start and goal could be a cabin, a boat, or a mountain peak. Here is one of my attempts of a cliff dwelling:
2 - Scene Maze
I have just started experimenting with scene mazes. For me it has been inspired by my time living in Mexico. I have done a street scene (shown below) that highlights the beautiful color buildings you find in Mexico. I am working on a scene of a Mexican door/house front. I have started making a scene of steps that lead to a church. What about a mercado ? A street festival ? So many interesting possibilities. An amusement park…
3 - Map Maze
The best map mazes are done the maze artist Ben Uelk. I think the structure of maps and the way cities are constructed make for natural maze possibilities. My own experiment led me to make a maze from the NYC Subway map. You can use the grid-like map of a cities road as pathways. One way streets could be used as conditional pathways. Maze maps can creatively include items or landmarks from the mapped area, used as the start and goal or as conditional points that need to be visited while solving the maze.
4 - Skyline Maze
My return to making mazes as an adult was led by a maze I made in Microsoft Excel of a skyline of buildings. I called it “Lost in the City”. While this did not represent a specific city (though it was inspired by NYC) the idea has always stayed with me. I remember a time when long skyline posters were popular of cities (maybe they still are?). Buildings make a great subject matter for mazes - so why not a large amount of buildings that are connected by maze pathways (like a cities worth) !
5 - Insect Mazes
Insects are small but complex beings. When you zoom in on them, you get a surprising number of legs, antennae, interesting eyes (think about the yes of flies), sometimes some wings, and a range of colors not normally seen by the naked eye. The detail that can be brought to something that isn;t seen with detail can be interesting (and terrifying!). Check out these excellent mazes from maze artist K Lars Lohn : a Spider maze and Bee maze.
6 - Portrait Mazes
I have mentioned it before - it is really difficult to draw the human face. If you have the ability to do it, and can make mazes of famous people, I want to see it ! I know how hard it is ! The closest I have come is with my Abe Lincoln statue maze which isn’t even that close, but hey it includes a recognizable face !
7 - Famous Art Mazes
I have 2 ideas here. 1 - In the style of - A maze in the style of Picasso, or Monet, or you pick your favorite artist. I like the number of directions this can take - abstract, surrealism, impressionism, realism, pop art, and more. 2 - Remake a specific piece - there are copyright issues here so de careful, but a maze of a famous piece of art would be epic. Mona Lisa Maze. The Starry Night Maze. The Scream Maze. American Gothic Maze. and so many more possibilities ! Here is my very basic tribute to Piet Mondrian:
8 - Rube Goldberg Machine Maze
I love a good Rube Goldberg set-up. And I have been thinking about making this maze for awhile. I thought about keeping this for myself, but I included it because I want to see it and I think it would be so cool that there is room multiple mazes of this ! If you are reading this…uh ? try it ? Like this maze would be epic ! I imagine start at the top of the page in a marble and a maze that roughly follows its path down thru obstacles ending at the bottom with a _____? Epic.
9 - Experimental Mazes
When I used to do monthly maze themes, I liked to experiment with maze constructions. THese included 3D Mazes, connected mazes, warp zone mazes, multiple versions of mazes within a maze. All of the mazes I made were ‘regular looking’ mazes, and none were attempted as recognizable items/artwork but more at the level of an everyday puzzle you would find in a book. But pushing these experiments to maze art levels would definitely be possible (but difficult) ! Here is my 3D Arrow Maze.
10 - Comic Book Maze
Another experimental set of mazes that is on my to-do list but I have not attempted for years. Create a comic book story. A mystery. Each comic book page has a maze that starts on the cover. The maze continues through the entire book. In the last section of the book, the maze leads to the story conclusion - possibly with multiple endings and the maze pathway you take gives you a different ending.
11 - Collaboration Mazes
I have done a few of these with my friends based off of their artwork. Some day I hope to share a few mazes with others. I did an Abraham Lincoln maze based off of some artwork I found online. When I saw Lincoln I knew he would make an interesting template for a maze. I went with a vertical maze construction. In this case the clipart was in the public domain, but you can be more intentional ! Thank you to Karen Arnold for the great face of Abe !
Abraham Lincoln face maze
12 - Weaving Pathway Mazes
When it comes to maze construction one of the things that tends to be static is the type of pathways. Some of my favorite maze artists (like Frankie C and theLadyLabyrinthe) use pathways that weave over and under one another. This makes for a more fun, but difficult maze to solve. It is clearly not right for most mazes, but when you find things in nature - trees, bushes, flowers, etc. they make great canvases to try using a weaving maze pathway on.
I had considered adding 3D mazes to the list, but you would need a manner to solve them - digitally with a special program, or with physical mazes. Sounds like a difficult challenge but one worth exploring for the bold.
If you want to get a little help there are some great AI text to image generators that can inspire you also !
Happy maze-ing !
You can invent your own maze types with some help from this 3 part guide:
Part 1 - Options for Starting and Ending a Maze
Part 3 - Conditional Pathway options
And some case studies:
Using Color for Maze Pathways - A Case Study
Maze Design Case Study - Designing a Grid Maze in Different Difficulty levels