SELECTED DESIGN PROJECTS
Space Satellite Command and Control Software
Client: Kratos Communications
Role: Project Lead, UX Research + Design, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Project Management + Client Communications, Futurecasting.
Status: In progress.
Background: This software is used exclusively by highly trained engineers and technicians managing space satellites and ground-based communications networks.
Objectives:
- Design for Situation Awareness
- Manage massive complexity (3-5 million data points)
- Design modern user interfaces
- Leverage futurecasting to design a system architecture that will adapt to emerging technologies over the next 1-2 decades
Envisioning the Future of Hitachi
Client: Hitachi Group
Role: Futurecasting, UX Design, Interaction Design, Visual Effects Art Direction, Client Communications.
Status: Completed 2018.
Background: Hitachi is a large corporation with a wide range of research and development areas. This project was to help Hitachi envision speculative futures to help with strategy, sustainability and resilience.
Objectives:
- Lead futurecasting sessions with Hitachi executives to envision speculative futures using Causal Layered Analysis, resulting in a narrative story set 10-15 years in the future.
- Design plausible future systems and interfaces.
- Work with a film director and special effects studio to produce a short film intended to inspire Hitachi employees and align behind a shared vision.
Virtual Tour of the Carnegie Observatories
Client: Carnegie Institute for Science
Role: Project Lead, VR Videography, Script Writing, Spatial Design, Interaction Design, VR App Authoring, Project Management + Client Communications.
Status: Completed 2018.
Background: For over a century the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California has been and continues to be the premiere astronomical research institution in the world. This VR app designed for Google Cardboard headsets allows members to visit parts of the campus not accessible to the general public.
Objectives:
- Design a conceptual space that is easy to navigate for novice users
- Design a calm VR space that minimizes vertigo
- Create a story that celebrates the history of the observatory while also emphasizing it’s contemporary research
Face Recognition Payment System
Client: The Cali Group
Role: UX Research + Design, Interaction Design, Motion Graphics Design, Prototype Design, Futurecasting.
Status: Completed 2018.
Background: The next step in electronic payment systems is to leverage biometric scanning, in this case face recognition technology. This system, called PopIQ, allows users to use their face as a form of payment or membership identification such as point-of-sales transactions, loyalty, programs, gym memberships, etc.
Objectives:
- Design a face recognition system that is easy to use and works within 1-2 seconds.
- Design motion graphics that communicate to the user that both their identity and financial information is secure.
- Create a fun and delightful experience for users.
Transportation Services Aggregation App
Client: Migo
Role: Project Lead, UX Research + Design, Interaction Design, Prototype Design, Project Management + Client Communications
Status: Completed 2018
Background: This app empowers users to compare choices between services such as Uber, Lyft, Yellow Cab, Lime Bike, and public transportation.
Objectives:
- Design a data-driven app that gives users more information to make informed decisions
- Simplify data in meaningful visualizations that users can comprehend within seconds
- Encourage more sustainable transportation choices
SELECTED ART WORKS
Glitchscapes
Description: Six years in the making, Glitchscapes is a photographic journey produced by algorithmic malfunction of the panoramic stitching software in digital cameras. The images reflect both an aesthetic of digital failure, as well as the subjective and fragmented nature of vision and memory. Official book launch and exhibition of prints scheduled at Design Lab in early 2019.
Media: Photography, Book Design
Mojave Green Line
Description: Mojave Green Line combines land art with ecological restoration. The work is situated in an area that has been damaged by off-road and utility vehicles, and plants are slow to recover due to sustained drought. The artwork is a 10-meter long line of native seeds, a starting point for revegetation. This natural process stands in contrast to the artificially introduced aesthetic element of a straight line. Project made possible by the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association. Site-specific seed mix provided by the Desert Botanical Gardens of Phoenix.
Media: Earth, Seeds, Polymer Water Crystals
To Cause A Dream
Description: Video art using dance and time as materials. Video/sound by Julian H. Scaff. Dance/choreography by Paige Walden. Based on the dance piece “The Mandate” by New Zealand dancer Paige Walden, which took its influence from the Haka dance of the Maori culture. The name of the video is inspired by the Maori word “Whakamoemoeā” — a verb meaning “to cause a dream.” Exhibited at the International Video Dance Festival in Burgundy, France in 2012.
Media: Video, Sound
Rumble Hush
Description: The built human environment is rumbling with infrasounds (sounds below the range of human hearing) but that still effect the human mind and body. For this project I used a contact microphone to record infrasounds in the 5hz to 18hz range in various cities across the United States, raised the frequency range to the 25hz to 100hz range, and edited them together into a new soundscape that explores our unheard aural ecology. The piece was performed at sound art venues in Chicago, Denver, San Francisco and Portland over the fall of 2013, and published on iTunes under the pseudonym Asonique.
Medium: Audio
A12NU
Description: This video summarizes the design research by Julian Scaff and Jeroen van Westen. They observed the urban flows an area between the city of Utrecht and the suburb of Nieuwegein. Although there are connections in the zone, it is a passage area. Roads, bike paths, a highway, and canals all create layers of passage that at times block the natural flow of the city. The artists suggest ways to reconceptualize the city around human flow rather than commerce. The project concluded with a video installation at the Architectuurcentrum in Utrecht, The Netherlands in 2008.
Media: Video, Sound
Scaff Design 
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