New website coming soon

I’m a design leader whose work sits at the intersection of technology, social context, and systems.

My practice has been shaped by a sustained focus on how technology engages with real, lived conditions, particularly for communities that are often excluded or misrepresented within mainstream product development. Rather than designing for generalized users, I’ve worked within specific contexts, where needs are complex and resistant to abstraction.

This approach sits in tension with dominant systems shaped by instrumental rationality, where simplification enables scale, often at the cost of nuance. These systems tend to operate in extractive ways, reducing lived experience into inputs for broader optimization.

These experiences have led me to question how these systems extend beyond technology and actively structure culture. Contexto is an independent bookshop and cultural space developed in response to this, bringing together independent publishing, craft, and community-based practices as a counter to extractive, scale-driven models. It prioritizes participation, continuity, and the preservation of knowledge systems grounded in practice, place, and lineage.

Alongside this, Hyphae is my independent design practice, where I collaborate with organizations and individuals working toward more regenerative, place-based futures. The work focuses on supporting systems, products, and forms of organization that move away from abstraction and toward approaches grounded in lived conditions, ecological awareness, and collective responsibility.

I’m Yannell

I’ve spent over 15 years working in technology, with a focus on designing for real, often overlooked conditions rather than generalized user models. This has included building tools to support busy parents managing the cognitive load of caregiving, improving access to essential medical equipment like oxygen for patients navigating insurance systems, and helping households make more sustainable, cost-effective choices around food. The work has consistently centered on specificity, where the impact of design is immediate and lived.

I’ve done this across both large-scale organizations and early-stage companies, including work at Walmart and venture-backed startups.