The World Painted
from € 75
A physical world wall map with a hand-painted watercolour basemap and cutting-edge cartographic design.
Made with love and passion, it's designed to be both beautiful and genuinely useful.
Made with love and passion, it's designed to be both beautiful and genuinely useful.
A cartographer's dream
“One of the reasons I began this project was because, when friends asked, “Where can I get a good world map for my child or living room?” — I didn’t have a proper answer. We believe The World Painted can become a well-loved map for any setting”
Nikita Slavin,💙
“They were maps that lived, maps that one could study, frown over and add to; maps, in short, that really meant something.”
To create a map like that —
a map that lives,
that invites you to explore the world through it,
we painted the basemap by hand, then designed each layer one by one, blending the craft of classic cartography with the modern design tools power.
Every label was placed with care, every detail adjusted until the map felt clear, balanced, and alive.
a map that lives,
that invites you to explore the world through it,
we painted the basemap by hand, then designed each layer one by one, blending the craft of classic cartography with the modern design tools power.
Every label was placed with care, every detail adjusted until the map felt clear, balanced, and alive.
Watercolor magic
The base of the map is a true work of art: a watercolour map showing nature: mountains, plains, ocean floor, sea and polar ice.
Dozens of hours of careful work went into it — and the result is an image that’s not just beautiful, but helps you intuitively feel the landscape.
But it’s not just a picture. It’s still a map — built on accurate data for elevation and landforms.
Dozens of hours of careful work went into it — and the result is an image that’s not just beautiful, but helps you intuitively feel the landscape.
But it’s not just a picture. It’s still a map — built on accurate data for elevation and landforms.
To explore in detail
The map shows the physical world with clarity and balance — without noise or clutter. You’ll find over 2,000 carefully placed labels, marks something for the geography nerd in all of us.
A special place in our hearts is the
🔎 sea ice — solid where it stays all year, scattered where it comes and goes.
To fit the globe on a flat sheet, we chose 🔎 the Robinson projection — and added 🔎 polar insets to keep the high latitudes readable. (Don't miss the 🔎 research stations )
The whole map rests on a 🔎 starry backdrop — a quiet nod to the old maps where Earth floated on turtles.
A special place in our hearts is the
🔎 sea ice — solid where it stays all year, scattered where it comes and goes.
To fit the globe on a flat sheet, we chose 🔎 the Robinson projection — and added 🔎 polar insets to keep the high latitudes readable. (Don't miss the 🔎 research stations )
The whole map rests on a 🔎 starry backdrop — a quiet nod to the old maps where Earth floated on turtles.
2051 labels on the main map, including:
— 426 settlements and polar stations 🏙️❄️
— 292 landforms ⛰️
— 254 rivers 🏞️
— 241 islands 🏝️
— 201 seas, oceans, straits, and bays 🌊
— 166 underwater features 🌊⬇️
— 152 mountain peaks 🏔️
— 80 lakes 🐟
— 50 deserts 🏜️
— 46 capes 🌬️
— 43 peninsulas 📍
— 38 regions 🗺️
— 23 coastlines 🧭
— 11 glaciers 🧊
— 11 salt flats 🧂
— 7 continents 🌍
— 6 lowlands 🌾
— 4 waterfalls 💦
plus 110 in Antarctica 🧊🇦🇶 and 194 in the Arctic ❄️🧭.
— 426 settlements and polar stations 🏙️❄️
— 292 landforms ⛰️
— 254 rivers 🏞️
— 241 islands 🏝️
— 201 seas, oceans, straits, and bays 🌊
— 166 underwater features 🌊⬇️
— 152 mountain peaks 🏔️
— 80 lakes 🐟
— 50 deserts 🏜️
— 46 capes 🌬️
— 43 peninsulas 📍
— 38 regions 🗺️
— 23 coastlines 🧭
— 11 glaciers 🧊
— 11 salt flats 🧂
— 7 continents 🌍
— 6 lowlands 🌾
— 4 waterfalls 💦
plus 110 in Antarctica 🧊🇦🇶 and 194 in the Arctic ❄️🧭.
Critics
Limited run of 50 prints.
Each one comes with a certificate of authenticity, hand-signed by the authors and individually numbered.
The map is produced on Hahnemühle German Etching — an archival-quality paper with a rich texture and gallery-grade finish.
By choosing this edition, you’re not just buying a map — you’re supporting independent cartography and helping our future projects to happen.
€ 370
Collector’s
Print
A classic format that fits any interior.
Comes unframed, rolled and safely packed in a cardboard tube.
A museum-quality Giclée print on Enhanced Matte Art — velvety smooth, heavyweight paper with deep colours and long-lasting quality.
Framing and packaging
Dimensions
Edition
taxes included. Shipping is always free
The World Painted
Framed
With hanger
Rolled in tube
91x61cm
120x80 cm
Regular
Collector's Edition
€ 75
ORDER
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Meet the team
Nikita Slavin,
cartographer,
started all the mess
Ekaterina Shchekina,
painter,
broke all the ice
Milana Gleboba,
cartographer,
put the mess in order
Sergey Nikolaev,
designer,
placed the map in space (carefully)
cartographer,
started all the mess
Ekaterina Shchekina,
painter,
broke all the ice
Milana Gleboba,
cartographer,
put the mess in order
Sergey Nikolaev,
designer,
placed the map in space (carefully)
As a child, I had a large — or rather, by my memory, enormous — world map hanging above my bed. Lying there, I would gaze at it with fascination, imagining the long and complicated journey a red patch labelled “USSR” must have taken across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to reach the upper left corner of the map and become Chukotka.
Right in front of my eyes was →
Maps are a very particular kind of love — and somehow, they just turn up on their own. Back in school, I confidently joined the orienteering club at a youth centre. I think it was a mix of things: a pull towards nature, towards maps, and maybe a bit of everything else, too.
Later, when I was finishing a maths-and-physics lycée, most of my classmates were heading straight into →
I don’t have any heartwarming childhood stories to tell—there were no maps hanging on the walls, and when I read Treasure Island, I was more into the adventures than the endpaper map.
But I clearly remember a moment at university, studying geography and writing my thesis on Europe’s energy networks, when it hit me:→
Part of my childhood was spent in Siberia, and from time to time, our whole family would travel by train across vast distances.
And by “vast,” I mean journeys that took three days or more — one way.
Later, we moved to Kirov. At school, I loved studying the maps in the geography classroom, trying to →
Process
cartographer
Nikita Slavin
Starting a project like this feels easy and not the least bit scary.
At first, you think you’ll manage on experience alone — something quick, light, and elegant.
In reality, "The World Painted" turned out to be the longest, most beautiful, and at times the most complicated map I’ve ever made. And without a magical team, I would’ve never finished it.
At first, you think you’ll manage on experience alone — something quick, light, and elegant.
In reality, "The World Painted" turned out to be the longest, most beautiful, and at times the most complicated map I’ve ever made. And without a magical team, I would’ve never finished it.
After a successful and incredibly inspiring collaboration on the World. Pacific Ocean View poster, I knew I wanted more. The cartographic producer in me had fully embraced the magic at the intersection of watercolour and cartography and was yelling: let’s make more!
The plan was simple: take Natural Earth data (beautifully packaged in the Equal Earth projection by Tom Patterson), reproject it, place it onto our watercolour basemap, add labels — and publish. And that’s more or less how it went. Except it took three years instead of three months.
The plan was simple: take Natural Earth data (beautifully packaged in the Equal Earth projection by Tom Patterson), reproject it, place it onto our watercolour basemap, add labels — and publish. And that’s more or less how it went. Except it took three years instead of three months.
I truly love cartography as an art form. In my own projects, I always try to find that balance — between perfectionism, artistic expression, mathematical and factual accuracy, and actually getting things done.
Whenever I looked for — or friends asked me — “Where can I find a good world map?”, I never had a proper answer. Honestly, I don’t like most of what you can find in shops or online.
So… we made our own.
Whenever I looked for — or friends asked me — “Where can I find a good world map?”, I never had a proper answer. Honestly, I don’t like most of what you can find in shops or online.
So… we made our own.
One of the first steps was choosing a projection.
The dominance of the Mercator projection is a real problem — it shapes a very distorted worldview in people’s minds (just take a look at any size comparison website).
When we were picking ours, we went a little more conservative than the Equal Earth projection, and opted for the classic Robinson projection — with two polar insets to better represent the whole planet.
The dominance of the Mercator projection is a real problem — it shapes a very distorted worldview in people’s minds (just take a look at any size comparison website).
When we were picking ours, we went a little more conservative than the Equal Earth projection, and opted for the classic Robinson projection — with two polar insets to better represent the whole planet.
Meanwhile, Sergey started sketching layout options (we print on demand, so we had to work with a fixed set of sizes), and Katya began painting the watercolour base (you’ll find their behind-the-scenes stories in their own sections).
Things were starting to take shape!
Things were starting to take shape!
We then dove into the long, persistent process of finding our map’s visual language — what the base layer would look like, which features we’d show and how, what symbols and fonts we’d use, and how.
At some point, the watercolour base was done, fonts were chosen, projection and sheet size were set — and the map started turning into something real. That was the first moment it felt like magic: delicate vector layers and labels breathing life into the painted surface — the map was alive!
A few more iterations followed (or rather: a year and a half of life, two house moves, and a lot going on both inside and out). Then — the first full print (still on white background) was on my desk in Helsinki.
A few more iterations followed (or rather: a year and a half of life, two house moves, and a lot going on both inside and out). Then — the first full print (still on white background) was on my desk in Helsinki.
That’s when Milana joined the project — picking up the cartographic side: label placements, font curation, data checks, improving the symbol system (she’ll share more on that in her part).
The project then launched into its final sprint — a full year of it.
We chose black as the background instead of white.
We chose black as the background instead of white.
We obsessively searched for the perfect balance in the map’s footer.
The black background felt dull — so we brought it to life with stars.
More test prints, more tweaks, more polishing.
It felt like we were almost done — but perfectionism is contagious. More label and style revisions… and just for fun, we decided to add ice to the map. (Which ended up being one of our favourite parts.)
Two or three more print rounds, switching print partners, a few missed deadlines, a few rounds of despair — and finally, the best map I’ve ever had the honour to work on was done and hanging on the wall.
Huge thanks to everyone who helped bring The World Painted to life —
we’re a stubborn, slightly mad, and perfectly complementary team of professionals!
we’re a stubborn, slightly mad, and perfectly complementary team of professionals!
painter
Ekaterina Shchekina
I adore maps.
Especially the kind with whales, palm trees, castles — or at the very least, Mordor with a hobbit trail. So when I was invited to draw one, I gladly said yes.
Only later did I think: “Hmm. But how exactly..?”
Especially the kind with whales, palm trees, castles — or at the very least, Mordor with a hobbit trail. So when I was invited to draw one, I gladly said yes.
Only later did I think: “Hmm. But how exactly..?”
In theory, it all sounded simple — divide it into continents and oceans. In practice, that’s when the fun began. I tested colours digitally, then on paper. Labelled pigments, tried out little swatches. I trusted the paper straight away — my favourite British cotton. Everything else was up in the air. Truly — everything.
I painted the continents one by one, and each took on a life of its own.
Australia — neat, compact, cooperative.
Africa — a guessing game of mountain ranges.
The Americas — I started with the mountains, because guessing got old fast.
Eurasia — “Can I just redo the whole thing?..”
Greenland and Antarctica — a bonus round: pure watercolour bliss.
Australia — neat, compact, cooperative.
Africa — a guessing game of mountain ranges.
The Americas — I started with the mountains, because guessing got old fast.
Eurasia — “Can I just redo the whole thing?..”
Greenland and Antarctica — a bonus round: pure watercolour bliss.
The oceans were a separate quest: the scale was all wrong, but I wasn’t about to give up.
I painted the entire sea on a full watercolour sheet — gradients, washes, a bit of magic — all with overlaps, so it could be stitched back together in the editor without tears.
I painted the entire sea on a full watercolour sheet — gradients, washes, a bit of magic — all with overlaps, so it could be stitched back together in the editor without tears.
I scanned it all at home, piece by piece. Assembled it in Photoshop like a carefully restored jigsaw puzzle. Some bits I polished up, others I left with their handmade textures. Nepal needed rescuing — the format just didn’t allow for tiny details. Africa, though — I’m still a little in love.
It was a big, occasionally bewildering, but thoroughly delightful project. I’d do it completely differently now. But I say that about every project.
Then a year later, I look back and think:
“Blimey. Did I really draw that?..”
Then a year later, I look back and think:
“Blimey. Did I really draw that?..”
Milana Glebova
cartographer
Sergey Nikolaev
designer