Tiying Zhao is an artist influencing how people interact with design. She is a visionary standing at the heart of design, technology, and culture, where she creates immersive and interactive experiences. Whether digital or physical, her work is about presence, emotion, and connection, turning ideas into resonant art.
Creative Career Kicks Off on The Sims 4
Zhao’s creative career started in video games. She joined Electronic Arts (EA) Maxis as a character artist for The Sims 4. The widely loved simulation franchise gave her an opening to showcase her technical finesse and digital storytelling instincts. She contributed to expansions for the game, including “Growing Together” and “Horse Ranch,” integrating emotional nuance into characters and new worlds.
Beyond the technical skill development, Zhao also walked away with an idea of how she would eventually lead creative teams. The collaborative culture at EA encouraged ideas to be shared, allowing creativity to thrive and influencing her approach to leadership. Now, as a founder, director, and producer of her own agency and studio, she brings that same spirit of camaraderie and collective artistry to her teams.
Founder of Silicon Valley’s Sparkware Design Studio
After her success at EA, Zhao founded Sparkware Design Studio. The creative agency and new media art studio is based in Silicon Valley and helps tech companies transform ideas into experiences.
The studio offers a full line of design solutions, including branding and marketing, UI/UX and frontend development, product design, and animation. Zhao and her team at Sparkware master the combination of creativity and technology to support tech startups and companies across AI, Web3, gaming, fashion, and hardware. Zhao’s innate ability to understand abstract ideas and fuse them with artistic depth is what helps those brands deliver functional, aesthetic design experiences that compel audiences.
Intelligent Fashion for the Next Generations
Zhao’s creative momentum has recently entered her into the fashion industry. Combining intelligent interaction with inclusivity and fashion, she is introducing a new vision of how design can integrate with the body. Zhao has designed a smart wearable device for Gen Z and Gen Alpha that turns fashion into a living, expressive interface. Her product is adaptive, emotionally intelligent, and meaningful. It epitomizes her mission to build creative ecosystems where these characteristics converge into designs that listen, speak, and connect people to their identities and emotions.
A Leading Voice in Art and Industry
Zhao’s technically impressive and artistically evocative projects have shaped her into a thought leader. She spoke at the GenAI Summit at the Palace of Fine Arts and the UC Berkeley Clean Energy Forum in 2024. She also spoke at the China Game Development and Entrepreneurs Summit in Los Angeles in 2025.
At the 2024 GenAI Summit, she was awarded the Creative Prize for Sparkware. In addition, her 3D animated short film titled “Life, Death, and Universe” was featured at the 2024 GenAI Art Showcase and praised for its technical achievement and emotional depth.
Crafting Connection in Every Design
Whether creating characters, designing digital spaces, animating stories, crafting visual identities, or leading teams of artists, Zhao’s work is about connection. Through her art, in every form, she helps people engage with culture, emotion, and each other. The art she brings to life in each project expands the perception of technology and design. Zhao creates not for aesthetics alone but as an invitation for everyone to connect with an experience.
Company: Sparkware Design Studio
Contact Person: Tiying Zhao
Email: contact@sparkware.us
Website: https://sparkware.us
Telephone: 415-606-1294
City: San Francisco, CA
