JANE ZHANG


ABOUT ME

I’m a Communication Design major at Washington University in St. Louis with minors in Human-Computer Interaction and Computer Science. In my work, I strive to explore a diverse range of narratives, perspectives, and approaches. My favorite part of the design process is the iteration stage, especially the moment where I finally arrive at the version that addresses everything I’ve been trying to communicate.

Recently, I’ve been interested in the nuances of multilingual typography and how the characteristics of different languages’ letterforms can be leveraged to enhance a concept across multiple linguistic demographics. Outside of my work, I love stories in any form, whether that means books, movies, or music. Lately, I’ve been watching Summertime Rendering and listening to Jack Stauber. 

Feel free to check out more of my work below!

HOME / CLIENT WORK / ARCHIVE

WEATHER VISUALIZATION


Since most weather forecast services tend to be very clinical, my partner and I created a variable weather visualizer that changes appearance according to the current or projected weather conditions of a given city.
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RESEARCH


In our observations of typical weather forecasting services, we found that they were often more focused on recording data than creating a sense of environment. While having access to such variables is definitely important, we wanted to create a more ambient dynamic painting that could shift in response to weather conditions while still communicating weather information. We decided to focus on temperature, UV, wind, visibility, cloud cover, and precipitation as our variables.


DEVELOPMENT


I created a color palette that could represent wide variations in data, as well as a set of neutral backgrounds that corresponded to each city’s distance from the equator. I also developed a series of masks that mapped to high or low visibility, as well as illustrated assets in a soft, riso-style visual language to evoke a more organic ambiance.

Temperature was mapped to a color gradient, while UV index was mapped to the size of the violet orb. We coded in particles that changed direction and speed according to the wind direction and speed projected for each day, and added functions that would change those particles (and the background music) to raindrops or snowflakes depending on whether there would be precipitation that day. Oval shapes representing clouds also followed wind speed and direction, and would increase in density according to cloud cover.

In addition to the core functions of city input and day-switching, we also implemented a side panel to give more detailed weather data. We also wanted the site to be accessible to people of different backgrounds and cultures, so we included a toggle between metric and imperial units.