Q&A with Oliver Uberti
Read our interview with our 2025 Geographical Engagement Award recipient, Oliver Uberti.
Oliver Uberti is the 2025 Geographical Engagement Award recipient for excellence in public engagement in relation to geographical issues.
What did you want to be, or where did you want to work, when you were a teenager?
"As long as I can remember, I’ve been happiest while creating images. During my final semester of art school as I prepared a portfolio to land a design job at National Geographic magazine, I wrote in a journal that 'vision is more about how we want to feel when we wake up in the morning than it is about who we want to be.'"
What role do you do now and how would you describe your work?
"After nine inspiring years at the magazine, I left to start my own design studio in 2012.
"I take on clients whose causes I believe in, from aspiring authors and small businesses to seasoned scientists and multinational organizations. No matter who they are, I get to know clients closely until I view their vision as if it were my own.
"Then I combine art history, cutting-edge research, and whimsy to create maps, graphics, and illustrations that people remember."
What has been the highlight of your career, regardless of how big or small, so far?
"I’ll always remember unboxing Atlas of Finance for the first time because the production quality was perfect; it was my most intricate cover design and book packaging job to date and I didn’t have a single complaint.
"This award, though, is at the top, second only to the medal I received from the Harvard Lampoon for helping them design a parody of National Geographic—and for saving their castle from burning down."
What projects are you working on right now?
"At the moment, I’m carving a block print about the evolution of Germanic languages, planning a stop-motion animation about the history of human migration, developing a book about the geographies of the Holocaust, and finalizing the cover for a book I illustrated called The Hidden Nations of Animals. Oh, and my band just released an EP."
Do you have any advice for someone wanting to go into your field?
"For long-term life satisfaction, remember what interests you, not what interests the market. If you happen to have a lot of interests, good. The unexpected connections between those interests will be the source of your visual voice. Despite conventional wisdom, it is possible to be a generalist in a world of specialists. Range is an asset, not a liability."
What three words would you use to describe your life and work?
"What if we?"
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