Dataviz - Collaboration with the Smithsonian

My Role +

Design and Development

Research

Testing

Skills +

End to end Design‍

Creative Coding

JavaScript

Prototyping

Client +

Asian Museum of Art, Smithsonion

Time +

Sept. 2020 to Dec. 2020

Highlight

" These works really got my attention!"

As one of the earliest example of visualizing collections from the Smithsonian Open Access, My work is mentioned on the official websites of Smithsonian and Parsons.

Project One: Fantastic Beasts and where to find them

Questions Answered:

- How many pieces of art have animals on them?

- What kind of animals are they?

- What is the relationship between the animals? What cultural connotations do they bring to the table?

→ Play with it

Project Two: the Scroll of Mudra

Inspired by ancient Buddhist scripture scrolls, the mudras (gestures) art pieces are gathered together and synthesized for presentation.

Questions Answered:

- What is mudra?

- How often do these mudras appear in the national museum of Asian art? Which is the most common?

- What are the meanings of the different mudras?

→ View it online

Project Three: What Makes a Buddha

Inspired by ancient Buddhist scripture scrolls, the mudras (gestures) art pieces are gathered together and synthesized for presentation.

Questions Answered:

- What is mudra?

- How often do these mudras appear in the national museum of Asian art? Which is the most common?

- What are the meanings of the different mudras?

→ Interact with it online

Quantative

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Pokemon ball

Time to recall back to the idea of a pokemon egg by transforming bar chart into a round one.

Animal Icons

I also added animal icons, around the theme of where we can find them, set the default view to an egg on the home page, hover over the corresponding name, and the animal icon will pop out， adding senses of exploration.

Doodles

To add a bit of interest to the work, I introduced Sketch.js. to turn ordinary lines into a brushstroke effect. It mimics a random doodle feel. Hopefully it will enhance the lively feeling of the animals

Result in screenshots

Qualitative

What Makes a Buddha

Inspired by me observing a Buddha statue at a buddhist temple every new year

A comprehensive introduction to the different parts of Buddhist sculpture, simulating the experience of a visitor observing the statue.

Not Charts but Scrolly-telling narratives
(That's right, I drew all the mudras here)

The last work collected animals tag, which is also one of the significant marks that make up a Buddha statue, so I collected other buddha significant- marks in tags. In order to put these elements together, I chose to use only interaction, scroll down the page, instead of any kind of chart.

From 2d to 3d, just like you are observing the statues

To make the experience more engaging, after Smithsonian approval. I added an external 3d render of Buddha as an illustration to show the piece more visually and to simulate the movement of the visitors when they walk around a Buddha statue

Result in screenshots

Reflection

"We would love to have you visualize our whole asian art collections"

How to work under limited resources? Let data tell stories

All the three projects were completed online, which brought a lot of communication problems with the client and the designer cohort. At the beginning I felt overwhelmed with the database because there was less information available. So I reached out to the Smithsonian people and asked them to give me more information or clarification. Interestingly, at the end of the project, I was invited by the director of the museum of asian art to help them improve the smithsonian database, using this project as a starting point.‍

Continue to visualize buddhism art collections: Bodhisattva, Vijra and Luohan....

My next step is to continue to systematically summarize buddhism art collections and incorporate filter and search functions. In 2017, smithsonian held an exhibition: Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice Across Asia. at that time I visited DC for the first time and visited this exhibition, which left a deep impression on me.Buddhist art is a large and important part of the collection of the national museum of asian art. So there is a great potentials to systematically visualize Buddhist art collections.‍

Connecting dots to tell the story of Asian art

My Role +

Skills +

Client +

Time +

Highlight

" These works really got my attention!"

Quantative

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Qualitative

What Makes a Buddha

Reflection

"We would love to have you visualize our whole asian art collections"

Say Hello

Connecting dots to tell the story of Asian art

My Role +

Skills +

Client +

Time +

Highlight

" These works really got my attention!"

Quantative

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Qualitative

What Makes a Buddha

Reflection

"We would love to have you visualize our whole asian art collections"

Discover More

Say Hello