Elegant Machine · 2026
Modernizing the Design System
Design Systems
Design Direction
Project Context
Elegant Machine was a full rebrand and ground-up redesign, including an entirely new design system, born out of the company renaming itself and needing a fresh visual identity to match its new direction.
My Role
Title
Design Director
Problem
The app was dated, inconsistent, and cumbersome. On top of that, the previous name, Medchat·ai, continually boxed us in with current and prospective customers. We needed a visual identity that felt more contemporary, both to match a new name and to meet the moment the industry was in around AI.
Contstraints
We approached the marketing site and the design system at the same time, which meant finding a sweet spot between what worked publicly (marketing) and what worked functionally within the app. We didn't have time to build a custom icon set from scratch, so we carried over icons from our Spaces system with adjusted treatments rather than designing new ones.
Process
Having just built a design system for Spaces, I brought those lessons directly into Elegant Machine. The goal was a system that felt more capable and intelligent than before, so rather than starting with isolated components, I started by redesigning the app's main screens. This let type, color, spacing, and sizing get pressure-tested in real context and start to cement before they were locked into a system.
Solution
The system shipped as tokens, components, and documentation, giving the team a real, usable foundation rather than just a set of redesigned screens. The main screens I’d redesigned early on served as the proving ground, and the components built from that groundwork allowed engineering to start building the new application quickly.
Outcome
The result was a cohesive, holistic v1 design system that gave Elegant Machine a strong foundation. Customer feedback on the new look and structure was positive both internally and with customers.
Reflection
The biggest gap I'd point to is icons. We reused the Spaces icon set with new treatments rather than building something custom for Elegant Machine, a reasonable trade-off given the tight timeline, but not the ideal long-term fit. A custom icon set better suited to the Elegant Machine UI is the next big step in making the system truly its own.