After two years of research, active listening, and development, we’re ready to introduce Atlas to the public!
This isn’t just a launch — it’s the result of a collective effort that put design at the service of people. Atlas was created with a clear purpose: to make mapping more accessible, inclusive, and intuitive for everyone.
Last year, we conducted the Community Survey, carefully listening to the OpenStreetMap community to understand their needs, challenges, and aspirations. We’re not here to compete for egos or impose solutions — we’re here to build together.
Design plays a key role in this process. It’s not just about aesthetics — it’s a strategic tool for inclusion, clarity, and empathy. We believe that good user experiences help strengthen communities and expand access to information.
Now, more than ever, we want more people to be able to map — with freedom, autonomy, and support. 
GitHub repository
Gustavo - thank you so much for taking the time to really explain this project. Seeing it grow piece by piece as you shared each development with the CWG has been really cool. I am hoping you’ll start getting more people to join the project, especially those who can help get you connected to the site maintainers now that the story is going to be heard by more of the OSM community after a year of working on it!
I am impressed at how far you and the other designers have gotten with Atlas and I’m honored to get to present on it–as best I can - in Boston. I wish you were going to be able to be there to speak to it in person.
Here’s to Atlas! I can’t wait to see it grow.
3 times the same idea?
But no chance to merge forces, hm?
Seems to be alike the German project for a modern homepage:
Maybe you can join efforts with?
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap-NG
I am concerned that, like OSM-NG, the communication surrounding this project is crafted to make it sound as if it was somehow official (“Atlas will be the design system of OpenStreetMap”) when in fact this is aspirational at best, and neither the OSMF nor the OSM website maintainers nor the OSM community have made any sort of decision about adopting this idea.
OSM-NG has been doing this same thing for a while and even acquired third-party funding by making people believe they were the future of OSM which is, again, very inspirational at best - but could also be called intentionally misleading. (Quote from Microgrant Proposal: Atlas Design System & Modernization of OSM.org · Issue #26 · osmfoundation/ewg_bidding · GitHub : “note that this software is unlikely to be ever deployed on osm.org”.)
It is totally fine to enrich the OSM ecosystem with new ideas (and we always say don’t just talk about what you would like to have changed, implement it and show it to us). But one should stick to the truth and say this is a suggestion or an idea for how the web site could look like - not “this is the future website”.
(edit: fix link)
The diary says that this is a collaborative effort between the University of Brasília and the OSMF Foundation supported by the Communication Working Group.
The CWG even commented this thread after two hours, I don’t think any CWG member commented the NG thread in two years.
So yes, it does seem somehow official—at least more than the other two projects.
That said, it might help to clarify what exactly the mentioned “effort” from OSMF is.
Also, I’d be curious to hear @TomH point of view, would you be willing to share it?
EDIT: I see Tom commented directly in the diary.
I had been assuming that this was simply the CWG cheering them on (in the sense of “it’s always good to have a wide ecosystem of ideas”) rather than a true joint project - if the CWG had embarked on a path to improve the OSM website usability they would surely have discussed that with the relevant parties in the OSMF first. From the comments in the EWG ticket it appears to me that no such intra-OSMF communication has taken place.
(Does SOTM-US have live streaming? Maybe I can watch @courtiney’s talk to understand more.)
If this turns out to be the case, I’d suggest removing the ‘collaborative effort between the University of Brasília and the OSMF Foundation’ line from the blog post, as it could be misleading.
It seems they are already in contact, as far as I know.
Although I agree some phrases could be better worded (perhaps the fact English is not his first language might affect this), I praise this initiative (as I praise the OSM-NG).
We kinda have, sometimes, a toxic community here in OSM. The behavior is similar to:
1 - you ask/complain about something (because you want it improved)
2 - no dev cares
3 - you and hundreds of people ask/complain again after 5 years about the very same thing
4 - devs return back, saying it’s not important, we don’t care, we don’t have time, it’s too hard
5 - after another 5 years, people are still asking about the very same feature
6 - the same devs from 4 (because they are the same) get angrier, saying that if you want it, you can do it yourself
7 - then someone does that, and submits a PR
8 - PR stays there, without being merged, for 3 years, because it’s never perfect enough to be merged/it’s not complying with current code style/whatever
9 - then you complain about this behavior, and the most beloved phrase of OSM comes up: if you really want it, you can fork
10 - then you come with the fork (or something disruptive) and the devs complain about it because you haven’t talked to them 
Ahhh, how to not love OSM community! 
(if you think I’m exaggerating, I am not. Take a look at any Github repository related to OSM, being the website, the main map style, or to a lesser degree, iD).
Gustavo has been relatively active in informing the CWG of his ideas & plans, which is much better than many others. But I wouldn’t get too far ahead of ourselves with single replies. 
The CWG is pretty small, but “keeps the lights on”, and doesn’t really do big meetings, plans or votes or anything.
Within OSM there is loads of things a talented design team can do. OSM.org website redesign is mostly more ops instead of CWG.
Who is “we”?
Yes, we work with OSM-NG. We believe in the project and they have been open to our design proposal
I have to thank to the CWG for the suport and for taking the time to listen, they are doing an amazing job. Unlike other parts that oppose new ideas and proposals just for the sake of opposing, I hope we’ll be able to change that!
We are a group of design studants, Professors, and devs
I think there’s a lot of improvements one can make around deisgn & graphics in OSM. I’ve had a lot of fun remixing the OSM logo. My design skills are low. WaterwayMap.org looked pretty basic until mxdanger reafactored it to be like OSM.org. So I’d love if it was easier to use OSM style, and make things easier to “look better”.
Claiming that mobile is not supported by the webpage (while it naturally is) and presenting a page with only 404s didn’t stir a lot of confidence, paired with the choice to use Figma, a proprietary platform with a proprietary file format vendor lock-in. We’ll see, fortunately it seems the Figma part they discovered themselves and are promising to offer an open alternative at some point, based on svg.
Yes, we also want to work on the graphic part and support the CWG with that, it’s already on our priority list
Regarding the naming: are you aware of GitHub - osmlab/atlas: OSM in memory, by Apple (Organised Editing/Activities/Apple - OpenStreetMap Wiki)?
And they have to answer to your commands because you or somebody else is paying for them to do that? There is literally just a part timer that works on iD, nobody else.
That is exactly my point 4, thank you for that!
Have anyone realized that here and in the OSM-NG topic, almost no one made valuable comments about the project itself, but made defensive remarks about OSM and the text?
Like, no one really cared that:
1 - Gustavo is working on this for the past 3-4 years for free (he got no money at all for that, and there is a slim chance that his 10-person team will get the 5k euros fortune).
2 - he PROVED that a big number of users actually find some problems with OSM website that can be improved (with a quite large survey, with specificity, not just a random “I don’t like the website” comment)
3 - he is with close contact with the CWG, so it’s not just a random someone’s idea
4 - and the chef’s kiss: he actually CONTACTED the OSM website maintainers 2.5 years ago (Reimagining the OSM.org · Issue #3785 · openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website · GitHub) and guess what happened? See my previous reply.
What is the true benefit of maintaining current status quo?
Here’s a proposal: let’s criticize the ideas and suggest valuable and actionable ideas. Not “here are the 300 things I don’t like about it, and if by miracle you fix them, I still won’t merge your PR”.
Disclaimer: I have absolutely no part in this project or OSM-NG.
By the way (and this could spin another topic), how the OSM “community” decides what has to be used or not? Like, if I design a whole new editor or a whole new map style, how can this be the default? Or, if I submit a flawless PR anywhere related to OSM, who decides that can be merged?
Voting? If 200 mappers says yes to that, but a single dev says no, what happens?