Jason Zhai

Designer / Developer

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Hello, I design and build interfaces.

I have a passion for visual design and digital craftsmanship, specializing in UX Design and Engineering. I am a bicultural, bilingual, left and right brained quick learner who has worked in Beijing for five years and San Francisco Bay Area for seven years.

Inside My Toolbox

Work Experience

  • Cisco Senior Software Engineer June 2016 – Present
    • Estimation, design, implementation, debugging, coding, code review, system performance evaluation and improvements for assigned software features.
  • CliQr Technologies (Acquired by Cisco) Frontend Software Engineer June 2015 – Present
    • Building highly responsive and data driven enterprise application interfaces.
  • Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) Front End Developer March 2011 – February 2015
    • Designed and built responsive websites, microsites, and landing pages (HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, Wordpress, php).
    • Created visually pleasing, consistent, and engaging interfaces to execute web marketing concepts and campaigns to optimize conversion rates.
    • Created web version conference guidebook utilized by over 10,000 conference attendees at Moscone Center.
    • Maintained several websites and applied updates (HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, Wordpress, php, Git).
  • Lead Designer January 2012 – January 2015
    • Designed GMIC’s key visual theme (Adobe Creative Suite).
    • Based on the key visual theme, managed the design team to create various sized banners, billboard posters, 48-page conference guidebook, stage design (LED screens), and opening ceremonies motion graphic animation, all within very tight deadlines.
    • Co-produced conference intro video with vendor.
  • GWC Inc. Design Manager May 2012 – October 2014

    Provided marketing design support to our team whose efforts resulted in the company receiving several rounds of funding from famous investors in China including Tencent, Sina and Xiaomi during my tenure.

    • Designed and built websites, micro sites, email campaigns, landing pages, web banners (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Wordpress, Drupal)
    • Designed banners, brochures, booklets, reports, presentations (Adobe Creative Suite)
  • A Bridge for Children International Graphic and Web Designer October 2007 – June 2011
    • Designed & developed static and dynamic websites with WordPress and Drupal and digital assets that are visually compelling and interactive.
    • Provided graphics for educational curriculums, which includes creating layouts, illustrations, brochure designs, training materials, displays, advertisements, retouching photos, etc.

Technical Expertise

  • HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, NodeJS, AngularJS, React, Redux, ThreeJS, Git, Webpack
  • Responsive Web Development
  • Website Performance Optimization
  • User Experience Design Principles
  • Visual Design: Layout, Logo, Booklet, Poster, Conference Production
  • Adobe Creative Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, InDesign
  • Maya 3D animation: Modeling, Rigging

Education

Courses

Independent Coursework

  • "Programming Methodology"
  • "Foundations of UX: Multidevice Design"
  • "JavaScript Design Patterns"
  • "Website Performance Optimization"
  • "Udacity Nanodegree: Cloud Developer"

Proud Moments

Helped grow GMIC from only an annual conference in Beijing with 3,500 attendees to an annual conference in Beijing, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Bangalore with a collective 25,000 attendees including CEOs of Tencent, Xiaomi, Baidu, Flipboard, Evernote and EA.

Was the third employee and first designer for the non-profit “A Bridge for Children International” that has grown to an organization have had an impact on more than 5,000 migrant or orphaned children through education and adoption services.

What I'm looking to do next

With a wide range of experiences in the field of UX, and desire to make a bigger impact with my work, I’m aiming to join a team that is building the most engaging, game-changing software applications.

“Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.”

- Tate Linden

Production Design

Designed the Global Mobile Internet Conference(GMIC) key visual theme. And managed the design team to create various sized banners, billboard posters, 48-page conference guidebook, stage design (LED screens), and opening ceremonies motion graphic animation.
See more on Behance

Storyboard

User Flow

Content Diagram & Wireframe Mockup

Front End Development

Wordpress Theme Development

Dining

I built the official website for GMIC 2013, GMIC 2012, GMIC Beijing 2013, GMIC Beijing 2012 and GWC. The projects involve using HTML, CSS, PHP and JavaScript to build dynamic WordPress sites. The Websites have responsive design, page and blog templates, custom post types and widget areas.

Basic JavaScript, jQuery and JSON

Dining

Using basic JavaScript syntax, which includes manipulating data types (like JSON), building loops and creating functions. At the same time, applying simple jQuery DOM manipulation methods to build the content the moment a user opens the resume. View Code

OO-JavaScript & HTML5 Game

Dining

Learn JavaScript’s object oriented programming features to write eloquently designed classes capable of creating countless instances of similarly functioning objects. Combining with HTML5 Canvas, recreate the classic arcade game Frogger and a simple Maze that has a number of entities including the player characters and enemies. View Code

AngularJS & Firebase Real Time App

Dining

Building a web application with MVC framework that can handle multiple users, registration, and real-time data. I've learned how to connect a Firebase database, read, push, and delete data, and construct AngularJS custom directives. The project also includes use of bootstrap for its interface. View Code

Experiment with Polymer

Dining

Experiment with Polymer to compose modular components into a functional interface that features responsive design, transitions between views using data-binding features, URL routing and deep linking, keyboard accessible and loading content dynamically on-demand. View Code

More demo projects coming soon...

I'm currently working on:

  • A feed reader app built as mobile hybrid using AngularJS, Ionic and Cordova.
    ionic, angular, cordova logos
  • A single-page application featuring a map in which I'll practice implement third-party APIs (such as StreetView images, Wikipedia articles, Yelp reviews, etc).

3D Modeling and Rigging

I've learned to model hard surfaces, human anatomy and quadruped animals, and how to rig 3D models so that they can be animated. View the dinosour with WebGL.