As an associate professor of communications design, Rebecca Davis Kelly is focused on the future of design. At Syracuse’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, she encourages her students to use critical thinking and strategic design skills to help them thrive in the ever-evolving field.
A practicing designer herself, Kelly has seen the industry and education change and has watched designers chase technology trends. She hopes to save her students from the same missteps.
“It’s not about the technology,” she said. “Yes, you have to know the software. Yes, you have to understand the technology, but you have to be the leader of it, not the chaser. It’s much more about the soft people skills.”
Kelly is not only teaching design, she is continuing to learn about the field and recently earned a Doctor of Professional Studies degree in Information Management from Syracuse’s School of Information Studies. She was part of the first cohort of 10 students to get that degree at the iSchool.
She defended her thesis, “The Democratization of Design: A Case Study Looking at the Do-It-Yourself Designers on Dribbble,” and was advised by Interim Dean and Associate Professor Jeff Hemsley.
As part of her research, Kelly found that enrollment in formal design education has steadily decreased as a growing number of graphic design students have turned to new learning platforms, such as YouTube and edX, to gain entry-level skills. The problem, she found, is that do-it-yourself designers often lack training in design thinking, critical thinking, and strategic design, which poses a significant threat to the ideals within the field and higher education.
“Design is not about designing,” Kelly wrote in her thesis. “It is about teaching design students how to see, think, and research to effectively become problem-seekers, facilitators of change and strategists as opposed to decorators, and this can happen as early as the undergraduate level.”
“Properly trained designers can use their abilities to address bigger picture issues,” she continued. “They can use their intellectual skills and creativity to allow them to become leaders and act as agents of change for the betterment of society.”
Kelly hopes to teach her students those same skills and design values. She is especially focused on the intersection of design, technology, and user experience.
Before joining Syracuse in 2017, Kelly was the co-owner, designer and art director of Pixel Pushers Design for 26 years, where she led a team in crafting captivating visual experiences for a diverse range of clients, from startups to Fortune 500 companies.
In addition to teaching at Syracuse, Kelly lends her design skills to children’s books and has written four books with her husband, Kevin Kelly, under the pseudonym P. Knuckle Jones. They recently released the second book in their series, “Finder’s Creatures Case #2: Alarm at the Farm!”
The books feature girls as heroines and creative thinkers in STEM and STEAM fields.
“We really are trying to change how little girls see themselves in the world, and I think that’s an important message,” Kelly said.