Designing products, systems, and everything in between.

I’m Elliot Rylands, a senior product designer based in Calgary, Alberta, with seventeen years of experience working across government, healthcare, SaaS, and consumer products. Most of my work sits somewhere between UX, systems thinking, prototyping, and engineering. Usually the complicated bits. Legacy platforms, AI tooling, design systems, and products that need to survive real production environments, not just polished presentations.

Over the years I’ve worked across UK Government platforms, healthcare products, enterprise systems, and fast-moving startups. The kind of work where decisions ripple through teams, codebases, and entire customer journeys. My approach is usually pretty simple: reduce noise, create clarity, and help teams move quickly without losing quality along the way.

Alongside design, I build. Front-end in React and Next.js, prototypes, internal tools, Figma plugins, and increasingly AI-assisted workflows that help ideas move faster from concept to production. I like understanding how things actually work, not just how they look in a deck.

Outside work, I spend most of my time with my wife and daughter, usually mixed between music, guitars, recording projects, snowboarding, photography, and the occasional sailing trip with my dad. I’ve always found the best ideas tend to come from staying curious and building things outside the usual tech bubble.