I bring people together through systems that humans and agents can both read.

I bring people together through systems that humans can read.

And I build them in code, so agents can read them too.

Elleta McDaniel with her dog Bella
Got a CTO to fund a design system teamDrift caseSix product areas on one systemSee what shippedOpen source, readable by humans and agentsExplore BELLA

Selected work

Start with the work.

Three cases, up close: what drifted, what I built, and what changed.

01 · Design systems · federated · 2026They stopped telling me what they’d doneProves a federated system can run without me as the bottleneck.federated systemno bottleneckRead the case
02 · Design systems · 2024 to 2026 · Lead caseFrom Drift to FoundationNobody asked for a system. I built one anyway, got a CTO to fund a team, then handed it to every product team.systems at scalegovernanceRead the case03 · Design systems · theming · 2026One system, many facesThemes in BELLA swap the values, never the components.token strategyno fragmentationRead the case

See all work

Word of mouth

She's now with us on the bleeding edge of AI & design systems, embracing new tools and ways of working.

Brad FrostAuthor of Atomic DesignMore on About

  • She delivers impeccably organized, developer-friendly design files, proactively communicates her intent, anticipates edge cases, and treats technical constraints as creative opportunities rather than obstacles.

    Mario MeziniFrontend Tech Lead, B2B travel platform

  • While Elleta is very creative and a great design systems person, she’s an even better human being. She brings enthusiasm to the table with care, humor, and respect to top it off.

    Ian FrostFrontend architect

How I work

The system behind the site.

This site runs on BELLA, my own design system. Here’s one card, taken apart.

The card on the site. Every value comes from BELLA.

Inspect BELLAWhere I learned itAccessibility