We created WTJ, an illustrated history of antisemitism. A painted atlas, country journeys and sourced stories turn a substantial subject into an experience people can explore at their own pace.
Explore the work01The idea
Antisemitism developed differently across countries and cultures. Understanding those differences takes more than a definition.
We wanted to connect historical stories to the places and circumstances in which they unfolded. The experience needed to welcome a curious visitor, support deeper reading and make the source material accessible.
WTJ brings three layers together: a geographic entry point, selected windows into local history and a Tree of recurring ideas. Visitors choose where to begin and how far to follow a story.
How can an illustrated world invite curiosity while giving the history the care and context it deserves?
Find a country on the atlas or through search.
Explore a selected chapter and its painted scene.
Follow the story, its sources and related ideas.
02A world with an identity
The visual language borrows from a travel journal: parchment, ink, painted landscapes and a small explorer named Ori.
Ori gives visitors a familiar companion across countries. The interface stays calm around the artwork, with native text and controls that remain readable, selectable and usable with a keyboard.
History, with
room to explore.
Original WTJ identity and AI-generated, interpretive artwork. The paintings establish a learning environment; historical evidence lives in the stories and linked sources.
03The experience
Three choices that connect exploration to understanding.
The atlas starts with a country. Each journey introduces local events, people and institutions before connecting them to recurring ideas. Geography gives the visitor an approachable starting point; history supplies the detail.
Selected windows make a journey manageable, but they cannot tell a complete national history. The country’s origin account and linked sources provide further context.
Discoverable objects invite a first click. A separate chapter reader then presents the historical stories in order, with sources beneath the text and a clear route to the next chapter. Visual exploration and sustained reading support each other.
A painting can establish atmosphere, but it cannot serve as evidence. The product distinguishes interpretive artwork from historical accounts and their references.
The Tree offers a conceptual route alongside the atlas. Visitors can follow a branch, explore an idea and read a country example. Returning from the Tree preserves the underlying country scene and chapter.
The categories overlap. The Tree is an educational overview, rather than a claim that every historical event has one cause or belongs to one branch.
04The build
A browser experience that adapts to the screen and remembers your place.
Desktop combines painted scenes with discoverable objects and a timeline. On a phone, a vertical layout brings country search, chapter selection and story controls into reach. The reading content remains native text across both.
Progress is saved locally without requiring an account. An installable PWA and service worker support returning to the experience offline after the initial asset cache completes. External references still require a connection.
Stable country, chapter and discovery identities connect the atlas, timelines, reading and locally saved progress. Sources are attached to the historical content.
Paintings establish place. Native text, semantic buttons, keyboard controls, reduced-motion support and phone layouts carry the interaction.
Static language catalogs and right-to-left layouts support different readers. Machine-generated translations remain drafts that need linguistic and historical review.
The working stack
| Layer | Tools | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | React + TypeScript | Native reading, exploration and responsive controls. |
| Content | Structured stories + source records | Country context, historical chapters and attributed references. |
| Returning | Local storage + service worker | Remember a reader’s place and cache first-party content. |
| Delivery | Vite + Netlify | Build and deliver the web experience at wtj.app. |
05Delivery & learning
The product is live: thirty country journeys, a connected Tree and a reading experience that works across web layouts.
These are delivered features, rather than evidence of learning outcomes. The next step is to understand how readers navigate, what they learn and where historical or linguistic review can make the material clearer.
Different local histories, with their own origins and selected chapters.
Painted scenes connected to historical introductions and discoveries.
No account gate between curiosity and the first country story.
What the work taught us
An illustrated interface becomes useful when it helps someone reach a clear story. The artwork, navigation, prose and source structure need to develop together, with each serving the reader.
What comes next
Reader feedback, educator input, historical review and language review should guide the next revisions. A completed interface is a foundation for that work.
Product views captured from wtj.app on October 12, 2026. Screenshots show the working web experience; illustrations are interpretive. Feature counts describe the published content, rather than adoption or educational impact.
Your idea could be next
An educational experience. A content-rich product. A new way to make a complex subject approachable. We can help shape the idea, identity and working software.
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