Kelly Salchow MacArthur

Kelly Salchow MacArthur is a Professor of Graphic Design at Michigan State University's College of Arts and Letters within the Department of Art, Art History, and Design. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design with Honors from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and a Bachelor of Science in Graphic Design Magna Cum Laude from the University of Cincinnati. Her academic career includes previous positions as Program Head of Graphic Design at Kansas City Art Institute and teaching roles at RISD and The College of New Jersey before joining MSU in 2006.

Her research centers on environmental awareness through design, exploring biophilia, materiality, and haptic processes. She investigates how spatial design and physical production methods can enhance audience emotional response to ecological issues. Her work integrates surface, volume, and material as creative opportunities parallel to traditional graphic design elements, informed by life sciences and inspired by architecture.

MacArthur's design philosophy emphasizes environmental advocacy as fundamental to human survival, employing varied communicative strategies from humanistic appeals to alarming statistics. She capitalizes on visual communication's power to create empathy and incite proaction toward humanity's relationship with nature, often exploiting dimensional formats to emphasize messages.

• International Olympic Committee’s Culture and Olympic Heritage Commission Member
• President Emerita of United Designs Alliance (UDA)
• Former AIGA Detroit Chapter President
• Two-time Olympian rower
• 2023 International Institute for Information Design Editor’s Choice Award recipient
• 2019 MSU Distinguished Partnership Award winner for green mapping projects

Her community engagement includes the Get Out The Vote: Empowering the Women’s Vote poster initiative commemorating 100 years of women's suffrage, developed with Nancy Skolos for AIGA and League of Women Voters. She also led community-based collage workshops with at-risk youth for Paris 2024 through the Olympian Artists Program, following her 2021 role as Olympian Artist-in-Residence for Tokyo Olympics where her Noren curtains celebrated peace and sport.

MacArthur maintains active exhibition presence internationally, with works in permanent collections including the Japan Olympic Museum and Museum of Avant-garde (Switzerland). Her teaching covers core graphic design courses including GD 360, GD 460, GD 365, GD 465, and GD 462.