You must submit your work by Friday, January 15, 2027 (11:59 pm ET/8:59 pm PT) to be considered.
About This Year's Contest
Welcome to the seventh annual Desmos Math Art Contest! Every year, we are more and more amazed by the inventiveness, artistry, and effort in each graph we see, and we’re looking forward to another year of celebrating human creativity and brilliance together with you.
Selina Wang, United States
Adam, United Kingdom
Hassan Kadem, Iraq
The Art Contest always inspires us to push the boundaries of our tools with new capabilities. Over the last year, we’ve released a few new features that we hope some folks will find useful:
- We added matrices to our graphing tools, including support for performing operations and transformations on points.
- We expanded custom color functionality. You can now define colors parametrically in 3D for more control over your surfaces.
- We added the logical operators and and or, which can make it easier to create cutouts and masks in your graphs.
- We also added a few features that can help with animation and interactivity. You can now use actions to change 3D shapes and update a table column from a list.
- We launched Notebook! Notebook is quite different from our other tools, so we’re especially excited to see all the surprising ways you can use it.
Using the latest features is by no means a requirement for getting selected as a winner. We look at every single entry, note, folder title, and artist statement. More than anything, we’re looking for graphs and notebooks that tell a story, share your mathematical journey, and show what you learned while making it.
We believe that math is a powerful way to connect with each other, so if you’re interested in learning with other people, offering feedback, or asking questions, please check out our temporary Discord. There, you’ll be able to connect with other participants and even some members of our team.
We can’t wait to see what you create!
- The Desmos Studio Team
Who Can Enter
Any individual aged 13+ from any country is eligible to participate, subject to local laws governing online contests.
Before you can submit your work in the Graphing or 3D Calculators, Geometry Tool, or Notebook, you’ll be prompted to complete the questionnaire to confirm your eligibility. If you’re over 13 but aren’t eligible based on your local laws, consider inviting a parent or guardian over the age of 18 to submit on your behalf at desmos.com/art.
What We’re Looking For
Winning submissions tend to feature a combination of the following traits:
- Creativity and originality
- A personal connection to the work
- Mathematical variety
- Care and precision
- Beautiful visual design
- Subtle and surprising details
- Performance
- Simplicity
- Fast rendering and smooth animations, even on low-powered devices
- Approachability
- Familiar math where possible
- Organized expression lines
- Descriptive notes
Improving Performance
You can test the performance of your graph or notebook at desmos.com/art.
As you strive to make a graph or notebook that is just as fast as it is beautiful, we recommend a few strategies:
- Less is more! Creative projects can generate an extensive amount of expressions, so combine those expressions when you can, or use lists to represent multiple static elements with similar properties.
- Limit implicit equations and inequalities (those that contain both \(x\) and \(y\) but are not solved explicitly for a single variable). Consider replacing these with explicit equations, parametric expressions, polygons, or points. Compound inequalities can be especially taxing due to the internal calculations needed to render the appropriate regions or surfaces—especially in 3D!
- Group your expressions within folders. Not only is this helpful from an organization perspective, but closed folders can also improve your performance if you have expressions that are changing regularly.
Original Work
We want to see your original work! We won’t consider submissions that contain copyrighted images, logos, characters, or audio (Pokémon™, Star Wars™, recently released songs, etc.). We also won’t consider graphs or equations you did not create yourself.
While you cannot submit graphs and notebooks with copyrighted images or audio, you may submit graphs and notebooks of works that are in the public domain.
How to Submit Your Graph or Notebook
You must submit your work by Friday, January 15, 2027 (11:59 pm ET/8:59 pm PT) to be considered.
Submit Your Own Graph or Notebook
- Open the tool in which you built your graph or notebook.
- Click the trophy in the header.
- Fill out the form. You will have to name your submission and write a brief artist statement.
We recommend you include a personal email that you check regularly so you can receive any updates. Some institutions block incoming messages, so please do not use an email address affiliated with your school or place of work.
Submit on Behalf of Someone Else
- Navigate to desmos.com/art.
- Paste the link to the participant’s graph or notebook in the submission box.
- Fill out the form. In advance, ask the participant to come up with a name and artist statement for the graph or notebook.
- Repeat the same steps to submit graphs or notebooks for additional participants.
Number of Entries
You can submit one graph per tool (Graphing, Geometry, 3D, and Notebook) for a total of four entries.
We generally only select one winning entry from any individual, but submitting more than one graph or notebook can increase your odds of being selected.
What You Could Win
We’ll select 20 entries to feature from each age category:
- 13–14 years old
- 15–16 years old
- 17–18 years old
- 19+ years old
Each of the 20 winners per age category will receive a $250 USD cash prize along with exclusive Desmos merch. We will also display winners’ art publicly on desmos.com/art and on Desmos Studio’s social media channels.
Announcing the Winners
Stay tuned for announcements on desmos.com/art after the contest closes. If you are one of the 20 winners per age group, we will also notify you by email.
The Fine Print
- All contestants must be aged 13+ as of December 31, 2026, to participate.
- Complete the questionnaire in the Desmos Graphing Calculator, Geometry Tool, 3D Calculator, or Notebook tool to determine your eligibility to participate. If you’re over 13 but ineligible to participate based on geography, consider inviting a parent or guardian over the age of 18 to submit on your behalf on our desmos.com/art.
- We will only consider a contestant’s final submission(s), so you’re welcome to resubmit your graph(s) or notebook any number of times before the deadline. This also applies to graphs submitted on your behalf by an adult.
- All submissions must be the contestant’s original work created within the Desmos Graphing Calculator, Geometry Tool, 3D Calculator, or Notebook. We cannot accept submissions that include copyrighted images and audio. Specifically, submitted graphs and notebooks may not include content that is not the intellectual property of the person who made the graph or notebook. This includes graphs and notebooks of your favorite characters, logos, songs, and images that are not currently in the public domain.
- Winners must complete our winner’s form before receiving any prizes. We reserve the right to verify a contestant’s eligibility and application information. Each contestant is responsible for ensuring that they are abiding by local data privacy laws.
- This contest is intended to celebrate human creativity. We want to see your ideas, your math, and your artistic choices. If you use other tools along the way, including generative AI, please use them just to learn a new technique or build your own mathematical confidence. Then, create the expressions, equations, and artist statements yourself.
Resources
- Read about some additional favorite features in the Desmos Help Center:
- Check out our Desmos Math Art Teacher Guide if you're interested in hosting your own art event with your class or organization.
Contact us at support@desmos.com with any questions, or ask fellow artists for help and inspiration in the Desmos Art Contest Discord.