For when nobody can say what it is yet.
Hi, I’m Yuki Iwanaga, and Creasty is my design and engineering studio.
If someone told you to talk to me, you’re probably in one of these situations.
The frame nobody chose
The spec is detailed, but the hard part is still undefined. One requirement covers two cases that need different treatment. Or every proposed solution answers a question everyone took for granted.
Feels wrong but holds up, or feels right but doesn’t
An instinct won’t back down, and nobody can yet say what it rests on, or where it might fail. The catch is that from the inside, preference feels identical to instinct, and from the outside, there is even less to go on.
The same words, not the same picture
Everyone leaves the meeting agreeing, but each has a different picture of what to build, and nobody finds out until it’s built. The same words hide different assumptions, between people at the same time or within one person over time. None of this gets cheaper when building does.
These are the situations I take on, in whatever capacity each one needs.
The moments I enjoy most in my work are when something I didn’t know widens the view, or I come away with a way of seeing I didn’t have before. Whatever logic can establish, better logic can overturn, and above all, it’s boring. The three situations above are the opposite: a problem turns out to be a frame you can step outside; something changes the standard you were judging it by; a structure shows up in another field under another name. I would rather stay in them.
Most of my work has been zero-to-one: first versions and substantial rebuilds.
In 2026 I went independent, to work across more domains.
- Henry2019–
- First employee at a company building electronic medical records and medical billing as one system: the first new attempt in Japan in two decades. Much of the difficulty sits between the two, and in the hospital’s day-to-day work. Early on I defined the product concept, designed its UI/UX and design system, and architected and built the software. More recently, I’ve taken on remaking Henry’s own operations and organization around AI: deciding what stays human, then building the principles, a shared knowledge base, and tools that extend what people can do rather than replace them. It has centered on the onboarding team, which leads hospitals through both adopting the product and reforming their daily operations.
- Wantedly2015–2020
- Engineering lead, then product management. Launched a business messenger (Chat, since discontinued) and a networking app (People) built on Wantedly’s social profiles, with business-card scanning at its core. I wrote Chat’s backend and frontend almost single-handedly, and People’s backend up to its launch. I later implemented video and infographic ads on iOS that monetized the app. Rebuilt the social profile and took over a late iOS redesign with its scope still growing, bringing it to release. Led the product team that expanded a recruiting service into three other countries, working in English with colleagues of ten nationalities.
- Earlier–2014
- Frontend engineering on FICC’s two product lines, and backend engineering for an on-demand food delivery service.
I’ve also worked for a few other companies on the side.
About me
Typography caught me early, before I could have said why. My father is a software engineer, so computers were around from the start. I was drawn to the machinery of things that move. At twelve, at the height of Flash, I started programming for the web, pulled in by what interactive expression could do.
Personal interests
Outside work I look for what widens the view, most often in something made to a standard high enough to raise my own.
Languages show where the boundaries fall. Learning a new one is conceptual reconstruction: the same world, taken apart and put back together another way.
Singing is something I enjoy. Learning to carry a feeling in my voice also changes what I can hear in someone else’s.
Film and TV series bring writing, design, and performance together until an imagined world feels real. Building a product is not far from it: a digital world, the real world it’s used in, and the bridge between them.
Clothes and rooms are the craft within reach every day, and an obsession I have never tried to cure. Being an introvert who is happiest indoors only feeds it.
Museums teach me what to look for: the history of how hard it has been to see what is in front of you, the times each work came out of, and the beauty that outlived them.
Photography began as a way of unlearning: years of chasing beauty through the lens of designing things had quietly narrowed what I let myself see. The camera showed me how much I had not been seeing, most of it in ordinary moments nobody made at all.