dataviz-smithsonian-collab

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

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

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

Project Two:
The Scroll of Mudra

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

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 Three:
What Makes a Buddha

→ Interact with it online

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

We would love to have you visulize our whole asian art collections!

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.