A Collection of Maze Design Case Studies to improve your Mazes

This post is meant to pull together all of my case studies on making mazes for easy reference. As I add new case studies, this post will be updated. There are over 30 posts to read, but I have organized them into larger sections to help get you to the content you are interested in easier.


In my very large section on How to Make a Maze I include a post on maze art which includes a case study at the end to illustrate the post:

How to Create Maze Art in 6 Easy Steps + Case Study


The first set of 6 case studies show a maze that I did not like, then I worked on them to improve them for the site:

Case Study#1 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Tiki Totem Maze

Case Study#2 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Danzante Conchero Chichimeca Maze

Case Study#3 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Red Rocks Amphitheatre Maze

Case Study#4 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - The Hollywood Sign

Case Study #5 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Severance Hall

Case Study#7 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Ship

The next set of 6 case studies show a maze that I considered to be good, but I still took steps to improve them. They were all inspired by a blog post about improving existing maze art, Maze Art: Advanced Tips to Creating Your Own Masterpiece.

Maze Art Case Study - Bodiam Castle Maze Coloration & Improvement

  • I wanted to give you an example of what this looks like in practice. The before on the left side and the after on the right side:

6 Completed Mazes that Deserve a bit of improvement

I have been thinking alot recently about improving my mazes. It started when I found over 20 mazes that I had abandoned for one reason or another. I wrote 2 blog posts about them that you can read here:

Why I abandoned these 10 mazes - Mistakes in Maze making

10 More Abandoned Mazes - Mistakes in Maze Making

But I also knew that a few of these could be salvaged with some work. And that led me to a series of case studies where I evaluated and transformed some of the mazes. I really enjoyed this. I had previously put in work and it was nice to see some of the projects through to completion even if it sometimes meant being creative in my solutions. Today I am doing something similar. These are completed mazes that have been featured as Mazes of the Week previously. I sometimes think I could improve them with some changes. The inspiration came from Maze of the Week #62 that I made of a windmill. When I posted it I thought it was ok…which was not good enough so I made some changes and posted a newer better version the next day.

Initial Maze: ok.

Revised Maze: I decided to add some shadows to improve the maze…and resized it because the lawn in front is too large IMO. Then I added a title. I think this really improved it. I hope you agree !

Windmill Maze

Here are 6 mazes I am considering improving in some way. I may never actually do all of them, but this is what I am considering:

  • Museo Soumaya Maze. The simple black and white maze (plus green for the plants) isn’t bad. But colorization would be more accurate. And this building always has interesting shadows on it in photos.

Museo Soumaya Maze

  • Burj Al Arab Hotel Maze. Colorize. Shadowize (is that a word?). You know this building gets a lot of sun ! That means shadows. I always get a good reaction to this maze and know I could improve it.

Burj Al Arab Hotel Maze

  • Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch Maze. The empty band near the top contains a very intricate scene that I never started/completed. I need to find a high quality picture of it…then take the time to draw it but was not sure it would be worth the effort (50 soldiers plus horses ?). Right now the maze does not go into or above that section.

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch Maze

Photo of the monument:

Billy Wilson - flickr

  • Severance Hall Maze. I already took this from abandoned to MotW status. Now I want to fix the trees, grass and bushes to be more natural. These are flat. I can do better. I have been making better trees and grass recently. So this is an abandoned maze that I revised…and now I want to revise again.

Severance Hall Maze

  • Pro Football Hall of Fame Maze - Colorize. Shadowize.

Pro Football HOF black and white maze

  • The Gherkin Maze - The structure of the windows means this could have a really cool hidden solution if I wanted it to. But what should it be ? I already have 2 versions, color and black and white. Do I need a third ?

The Gherkin blk and white maze

So those are the 6 mazes that I look at and wonder if I should take the time to improve them. I’m sure a few of them will be done when I have time. If you have a maze you would like to see improved you can vote below for the 1 to 3 mazes (none is also an option). Thank you for your input !

Case Study#4 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Hollywood

I have written 2 blog posts featuring a total of 20 mazes that I abandoned for one reason or another. You can read them here:

Why I abandoned these 10 mazes - Mistakes in Maze making

10 More Abandoned Mazes - Mistakes in Maze Making

I took the time to evaluate the mazes and see why they did not work and try to determine - could they be salvaged ? Today I present my 4th case study for improving one of those mazes, The Hollywood Sign. If you want to read the previous 3 case studies:

Case Study#1 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Tiki Totem Maze

Case Study#2 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Danzante Conchero Chichimeca Maze

Case Study#3 - How to Improve a Bad Maze - Red Rocks Amphitheatre Maze

Back to this maze. Here is what I wrote about the maze in the previous post on why it was abandoned:

“Abandoned Maze #1 - The Hollywood Sign Maze

Technically could be considered a finished maze. But it is very boring. Not particularly good. It does not bring a Kondo level of joy. The maze is easy. Could it be salvaged ? Yes, probably with some color and lots of background detail - but once you see a photo of the actual sign and it’s surroundings you notice a lot of rocks/dirt and just a few bushes. The top of the hill has fences, and cellphone towers, etc. So, this COULD be salvaged, but most likely won’t be. Mistake made: Poor subject matter / poor execution

And let’s look at that maze, also known as the ‘before’. SOOOO boring.

This was a tough one. I rated the above maze a 2 out of 10. Here are the changes I made to (hopefully) improve the maze:

1. Color added - The Hollywood letters in white should pop against the background of the hill. So I colored the hill to enable the bright white letters to pop. I did 2 versions of the hill, bright green and a more normal brownish green we need rain color.

2. Tower added - I added a tower to the top of the hill. One of many possible but enough to show what is there. I did not add the fence since most people never notice it.

3. Bushes added - The slope of the hill has many different types of bushes in various shades of green/brown and grey. I added them around the hillside. I also added some outlines of ridges and some dirt trails.

4. Blur - Although when I saved the file as a png it does not save (so I use screenshots instead), I made everything on the hill that is not a letter blurry. The hillside in pictures does not have a lot of definition or detail that is important - it is just there so highlight the sign, so the blurring helps this (I hope).

5. Letter and branding added - Added the name of the maze and added my branding.

6. Sizing Change - Slight change based on how everything looked, I kept the wide shot but gave it a bit more height based on the tower/branding locations. Initial maze was 990 x 360 and is now 990 x 494, so 37% taller.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Better. Maybe this went from a 2 to a 5. A 2 never sees the light of day. A 5 only does if I see a special case for it (like this case study).

And now the “After”. The new maze in 2 colors:

Hollywood Sign Maze
Hollywood Sign Maze alternative color

I think this is an improvement. What do you think ? Do you prefer one green over the other ?

Case Study #1 - How to Improve a Bad Maze

I have written 2 blog posts featuring a total of 20 mazes that I abandoned for one reason or another. You can read them here:

Why I abandoned these 10 mazes - Mistakes in Maze making

10 More Abandoned Mazes - Mistakes in Maze Making

I took the time to evaluate the mazes and see why they did not work and try to determine - could they be salvaged ? Today I present a case study for improving one of those mazes, the Tiki Totem Maze which ended up becoming Maze of the Week #86. Here is my analysis from the previous blog:

“Abandoned Maze #4 - Tiki Totem Maze

I thought this would be a good idea. Tiki totems are so cool. I can’t quite put my finger on this. It just isn’t good enough to be on the site as a weekly featured maze. I think it MIGHT be able to be fixed. Add color to the totem, and to make it more interesting - SHADOWS. I would also try a more complex maze structure vs the current kids level format. But I can’t be sure that will be enough…so it will not get done ….or it will. We’ll see. Mistake made: Not enough details / interest”

And I must say, for a maze to be recoverable, the mistake made of not enough details/interest is a giveaway that the maze is salvageable with some additional work. Now let’s look at that original maze, also known as the ‘before’:

And here are the changes I made to (hopefully) improve the maze:

1. Color - The actual tiki is not black and white (nor does it have brown accents as the initial maze pathways imply. I went with the weathered grey color of the tiki. I switched the color of the walls to a complementary charcoal color.

2. Shadows added - It is a tiki on a beach so it is in the sun. I went with lots of shadows ! This really shows the shape of the tiki better, especially the eye area. I took the extra time to shadow the nose, neck, and under the pecs.

3. Maze placement - The tiki is full length and sits in the sand on a beach, but I only made the top portion. It is also surrounded by a sea of white nothingness. After considering adding the full totem, I instead decided to place the totem against the bottom of the page which allowed for….

4. Beach scene added - By moving the totem forward there is a large background to fill. That was a perfect place to add a background that included a beach, a palm tree and the sky. I spent 70% of the time improving this maze working on the leaves of the tree, then used a gradient color to accurately color the trunk. I did my best to add foam to the break of the water at the shore.

5. Start and Goal changed - The placement also meant a change from arrows to an internal Start and Goal using lettering.

6. Sky addition - The white sky felt like empty space. Might as well finish the color. I went cloudless like a great day at the beach (with sunscreen).

7. Lettering and branding - Add the name of the maze and my branding both of which were previously missing.

Also considered but not updated:

I decided to not change the actual maze beyond minor moves. It remains easy for kids but looks a lot better for everyone; Something on the water like a boat or a shark fin, or the sky like the sun or some birds; The full totem poll (as mentioned above).

And now the “After”. The new maze:

Hawaii Tiki Totem Maze

I think this is an improvement. What do you think ? Should I have added more details ?

This is how the Tiki Totem became Maze of the Week #86 after sitting on the shelf for over 2 years ! Maze download is available !