Speaker

Steven Wakabayashi

Steven Wakabayashi

Founder, Stranger Creative

New York City, New York, United States

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Steven Wakabayashi (he/him) is an award-winning designer and founder in New York City. He leads Stranger Creative, an independent creative agency that builds world-class digital experiences and design systems for ambitious brands​, from startups to Fortune 100​ companies.​ Previously, Steven ​led design ​for Apple, Google, Publicis, and Huge. He is also the founder of QTBIPOC Design, a nonprofit creating pathways for underrepresented designers in the creative industry.

Steven earned a BS in Physiology & Neuroscience and a BA in Dance from the University of California, San Diego​, an interdisciplinary foundation that continues to inform his systems thinking and human-centered approach to design. He has also completed a two-year mindfulness teacher​-training with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach​, an experience that shapes his commitment to mindful leadership and sustainable creative practices.

Steven ​a​lso hosts Yellow Glitter, a podcast ​amplifying the stories of queer Asian creatives, ​entrepreneurs, and community leaders shaping culture and changing the world.

Area of Expertise

  • Business & Management
  • Consumer Goods & Services
  • Finance & Banking
  • Government, Social Sector & Education
  • Information & Communications Technology

Topics

  • Design Systems
  • Scalable Design Systems

Systems Ops: Creating Design Systems for Humans and Machines

For creative teams, design systems have been foundational to scaling creative work, maintaining brand consistency, and creating cost efficiencies. But as AI becomes an active participant in the creative process, these systems now have to serve two audiences: the humans building with them and the machines increasingly working alongside them.

This interactive session combines discussion and hands-on workshopping to explore how design systems are evolving for an AI-enabled future. Examine practical approaches, share experiences, and evaluate how current systems can better support both human and machine collaborators.

This working session covers:

- How design systems need to evolve to support both creative teams and AI workflows
- Documentation as infrastructure and organizing design as structured data
- Platform-agnostic architecture and building systems that aren’t dependent on any single tool
- A collaborative audit framework participants can use to assess where their design systems stand today, identify gaps, and define a path forward

Design Operations New York 2026

June 2026 New York City, New York, United States

Steven Wakabayashi

Founder, Stranger Creative

New York City, New York, United States

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