Elanco Design System

A foundational design system and component library for Elanco Knowledge Systems, unifying a fragmented ecosystem post-M&A, and enabled scalable, data- and AI-driven products.

The work culminated in the redesign of UpLook as the first implementation and the rapid development of ElancoGPT, a globally adopted internal AI tool.

Background

Following its acquisition of Bayer Animal Health, Elanco inherited a fragmented ecosystem of tools, workflows, and knowledge systems spanning 400+ products. As the organization began modernizing its backend and front-end systems, teams operated across siloed platforms with inconsistent experiences and limited alignment between product, sales, and operations.

The existing style guide was primarily print-based, lacking the structure and flexibility needed to support modern digital products.

Problem

The absence of a unified, digital-first design system limited consistency, scalability, and cross-platform integration across Elanco’s ecosystem. A print-oriented style guide could not support interactive, data-driven workflows, while onboarding for platforms like EKS Passport and UpLook relied on manual, sales-assisted processes—resulting in inefficiencies, data inconsistencies, and limited self-service capabilities.

Goal

Establish a scalable, digital-first design system by evolving the existing print-based style guide into a flexible system of tokens, components, and patterns. Enabling consistent, efficient workflows and supporting modern, data-driven and AI-powered products, starting with UpLook and extending to tools like Elanco GPT.

TEAM

Cross-functional collaboration with solution engineers, front-end, data/AI teams, EKS Operations, sales, and technical consultants

ROLE

Lead UX Designer & Researcher

TIMEFRAME

September 2022 - June 2024

PLATFORM

Agnostic: Web, Mobile, Tablet

INDUSTRY

Biotechnology
Pharmaceutical
Veterinary Medicine
Agriculture/ Food Systems

Outcomes & Results

Established a digital-first design system that unified Elanco’s fragmented ecosystem and scaled across 400+ products.

Redesigned UpLook as the first implementation, enabling streamlined onboarding, reduced manual data entry through integrations, and improved access to real-time insights for dairy and beef operations. Standardized components and workflows improved cross-team alignment and accelerated product development.

Rapidly prototyped and launched Elanco GPT in three days, followed by a full release with document upload capabilities. Adopted by employees globally, it spearheaded the use of generative AI tools across the organization.

Components

Using figma, I documented breakpoints, headings, typographic scale, brand colors, buttons, states and errors with respect to TailwindCSS utility classes and Heroicons. The corresponding code was documented in Storybook.