Jacob Waites
I design, prototype, and build brands and interactions full of expressive type, fun motion, bold colors, and minimal line-work. Sometimes I write and speak about design. My craft is the way I speak to the world, I work to help others find their voice and make them successful.
Zapata
Quantum computing software that speaks all hardware languages so you don't have to.
Orquestra Studio
Orquestra studio is a tool that combines creation, orchestration, and visualization of quantum and classical computing workflows to solve enterprise problems. Quantum engineers and scientists come together in this tool to manage and deploy quantum-ready applications made by Zapata and corporate teams.
The Design System
The system for Orquestra studio follows the VS Code visual language closely and makes modifications only inside of new panels to give users an integrated experience. The initial prototypes were tested by users flowing through the experience in an electron app with an embedded Figma view inside to give the illusion of a real experience that they could give honest feedback on.
Graph View and Components
In an effort to give enterprise customers more control over modular workflows, I designed a DAG interface for adusting and creating new workflows with nodes containing formatting settings.
Those nodes were designed to be generated by coded workflows, meaning by adjusting parameters and connections inside of the graph, you were adjusting real code.
OS Editor
We also built views for a standalone editor that focused on multiple views of workflow code to create a better editing experience that could also run and visualize workflows in the same place.
Node Components
The node components have different zoom level variants for seeing at a glance information when zoomed out, and being able to adjust details and datasets when focused on a singular module.
In addition, I also designed a set of components for creating and visualizing quantum circuits.
Zapata Brand Explorations
As a large part of my duties as head of design, I built out a broader brand for Zapata and Orquestra.
Andretti Collaboration
Zapata formed a partnership with Andretti Autosport to create a mobile datacenter on the track initially named the PIT Center. I led the creation of the visuals to be applied to the truck and also worked with Andretti to bring the Zapata brand to the team's suits and graphics.
