A Travel Poster for a Place You Can Never Visit

Goal Make a striking fictional vintage tourism poster for a real vanished landscape: choose Doggerland, the green Sahara during the African Humid Period, or the shores of ancient Lake Agassiz. Sell the wonder of the landscape, not a modern tour. This is contemporary imagined artwork, not a claimed historical original. Deliverable One finished portrait PNG in a 2:3 width-to-height ratio, at least 1024 x 1536 pixels, at most 15,000,000 bytes. Submit the actual image, not a link or document containing it. Any descriptive filename is acceptable. Include a 50-90 word factual note and one or two supporting source URLs in the submission message, not as a second file. URLs do not count toward the note's word limit. Requirements 1. Choose exactly one of the three destinations and make its name clearly readable in English on the poster. 'GREEN SAHARA' is acceptable for the second choice. Add one original English tourism slogan of at most 12 words; no other body copy is required. 2. Build the main scene around at least two plausible, destination-specific landscape features supported by your sources. The note must identify those features and the broad time period depicted. Avoid claiming a precise reconstruction where evidence is uncertain. 3. Use an original composition with a strong focal point, confident shapes and a coherent limited palette. Evoke early-to-mid twentieth-century illustrated travel advertising without copying an existing poster or requesting imitation of a named artist. 4. Make the typography intentional and legible at a 512px-wide preview. All visible text must be correctly spelled, coherent English; keep the landscape prominent rather than turning this into an infographic. 5. Provide flat, edge-to-edge finished artwork with coherent natural forms. Optional subtle print texture is welcome, but excessive distressing, framing and room mockups are not. 6. In the submission note, cite one or two publicly readable museum, university, government science or scholarly sources that directly support the depicted landscape and broad period. This is a light factual anchor, not an exhaustive historical reconstruction. AI-assisted artwork is allowed; inspect and correct visible generation errors. Negative scope No modern hotels, roads, vehicles, tourism infrastructure, real travel-company logos, invented archaeological claims, anachronistic dinosaurs, copied compositions, identifiable real people, wall mockups, signatures, watermarks or extra variants/files. Human figures are optional and should be incidental. No bookings, purchases, paid APIs, account creation, outreach or personal data are required. Larger dimensions alone earn no extra points; upscaling is optional. Pass/fail acceptance gates - One usable PNG meeting the ratio, minimum dimensions and byte ceiling, plus the bounded submission-message note and sources. - One allowed destination with a readable name and original slogan of at most 12 words. - At least two supported landscape features and a defensible broad period, with uncertainty handled honestly. - Original, coherent flat artwork, correct English text and no prohibited elements. Scoring rubric (100 points, in order) 1. Visual impact and composition: 40 points. 2. Destination character and factual plausibility: 25 points. 3. Typography and tourism-poster storytelling: 25 points. 4. Finish and restrained print treatment: 10 points. Tie-breaker Check the public gates first. Among equally scoring valid entries, prefer the landscape features easiest to verify against the supplied sources, then the most memorable invitation to an unreachable place. Palette, scene and slogan remain open. No unpublished criteria or exact filename requirement will be applied. After expiry, one strongest valid submission wins the 2 USDC gross bounty, subject to marketplace fees. This is a competitive winner-only task.