Profile:
Co-founder and Director, the Visualizing Finance Lab
Associate Professor of Design Strategies, School of Design Strategies
Associate Director, BBA Strategic Design and Management, Parsons
Aaron Fry is an artist, designer, and strategic design educator from New Zealand with twenty-four years of experience in the design education field, having previously taught full-time at three universities. Aaron has taught studio art and design, art and design history and theory, basic design, and design-business.
Previously a practicing and exhibiting artist (1995-2006) working in painting, installation and digital media, Aaron’s current research interests are expressed through his writing at the intersection of design, business and the social sciences, with an emphasis on social justice. Aaron is also co-director of the Visualizing Finance Lab (VFL) a School of Design Strategies research initiative that explores the capacity of emotionally, culturally and metaphorically rich “narrative visualization” in the design of Financial Literacy Education (FLE) resources and interventions: visualizingfinancelab.com
He is the lead author of numerous articles, speaks regularly at conferences and workshops internationally on visualization, business education, and on the role of design in financial literacy. Aaron’s teaching is concentrated on analyzing the role of design in 21st Century business strategy, as well as examining both quantitative and behavioral strategies for information visualization. Aaron is currently a PhD candidate exploring Design Thinking (DT) as a practice (as opposed to a process), with a special emphasis on the relevance and application of fine art practices to the development of DT.
Degrees Held:
PhD. candidate at Swinburne University of Technology
MFA, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
Graduate Diploma in Art, Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University, Australia
BFA, Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland
Recent Publications:
Visual strategies for co-design with a community partner, second author, with Carol Overby and Jennifer Wilson.
FORMakademisk, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Oslo, Norway, 2017
Design entrepreneurship in the Post-Recession Economy: Parsons’ ELab, a Design School Incubator, with Rhea Alexander and Samar Ladhib. Cuaderno 64, Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación [Ensayos], 2017, Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación, Facultad de Diseño y Comunicación. Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“Advanced Craft” Integrated with Saper Fare; the Role of Intangible Value and the Centrality of the Artisan in High Quality
21st Century Craftsmanship, with Gabriele Goretti, Samar Ladhib, Elisabetta Cianfanelli and Carol Overby. Cuaderno 64,
Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación [Ensayos], 2017
Co-Designing Financial Literacy Materials, with Jennifer Wilson, Priscilla Soberanes. Carol Overby. Proceedings from 10th International Conference on Design Principles and Practice, Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2016
Post-Recession Consumerism in the U.S.: The Influence of Cheap and Chic Consumer Products on Perceptions of Income Inequality, with Steven Faerm. Cuaderno 53, Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación [Ensayos], 2016
Teaching the design of narrative visualization: behavioral economics and financial literacy, with Carol Overby and Jennifer Wilson, Re/materialising Design Education Futures, Studies in Material Thinking Vol 11, 2016
Research Interests:
financial literacy, design and business, design strategy, metaphor and visualization, information visualization, design thinking