Frances Yllana is a designer, art director, writer, teacher, leader and design thinking facilitator. She is the co-chair of AIGA’s national Design for Democracy Initiative, Design Director for AIA Dallas’s Columns Magazine, and President Emeritus of AIGA Dallas-Fort Worth. She also continues to grow her design thinking facilitation skills by conducting workshops for non-profit and for-profit organizations, leading them to solve problems and innovate using radical collaboration.

Since 2001, she has worked for and led some of Dallas’s most reputable design, advertising and interactive firms on projects ranging from print to experiential, and her work has been recognized in all the big print and interactive collections and has won awards from numerous leading local and national industry organizations.

Frances also has extensive teaching experience, as a professor at the University of Texas and at the University of North Texas. In addition, she has received IBM’s Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner and Co-Creator certification. She is an alumni of D Magazine’s Leadership Academy, and is highly involved in multiple community organizations such as the Coalition for a New Dallas and Art Conspiracy.

In July 2018, Frances completed Yale University’s School of Management’s Business Perspectives for Creative Leaders program, receiving an Executive Certificate for Business Leadership. She has a degree in Communication Design and Journalism from The University of North Texas. She loves New England—sure enough. However—she was born and raised in Dallas. She wears a typographically ornate “Dallas” necklace almost every day, and the State map is tattooed on her forearm so you can’t miss it. Some things aren’t meant to change.