Thomas K GIRARD, MA, CDP

“Host of UNIQUEWAYS. Talk published on TED.com”

info@thomaskgirard.com

KEY LINKS

PRINT Mag
https://www.printmag.com/what-matters/what-matters-to-thomas-girard/

TED.com talk https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_girard_how_to_feel_at_home_in_the_airport

UNIQUEWAYS https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/uniqueways-with-thomas-girard/id1632267449

Brave UX https://thespaceinbetween.co.nz/brave-ux-podcast/165-thomas-girard

ADDITIONAL BIOS

Full

Thomas Girard is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning design scholar, educator, author, and speaker, and the host of UNIQUEWAYS, a global podcast featuring conversations with leading voices in design, technology, and creativity, including Paola Antonelli, Debbie Millman, and Don Norman. His TEDx talk, “How to Feel at Home in the Airport,” was selected for publication on TED.com, where it has reached more than 120,000 views and 18 translations. A former UX designer at Lenovo’s Innovation Design Centre, Thomas serves as a Typography Careers Consultant in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. He holds a BDes from Emily Carr University and an MA from Simon Fraser University, where he received two graduate fellowships. He is also the creator of the UX Now framework and has spoken at international venues including the Sorbonne in Paris.

Mid

Thomas Girard is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning design scholar, and the host of UNIQUEWAYS, a global podcast featuring conversations with leading voices in design, technology, and creativity, including Paola Antonelli, Debbie Millman, and Don Norman. His TEDx talk, “How to Feel at Home in the Airport,” was selected for publication on TED.com, where it has reached 18 translations.

Short

Thomas Girard is the host of UNIQUEWAYS. His TEDx talk was selected for publication on TED.com.

Shortest

Host of UNIQUEWAYS. Selected for publication on TED.com.

PORTRAITS

AS SEEN IN

FEATURED IN

AFFILIATION, MEMOIR, WORLD TOUR & LINKS: INTERVIEWS, PUBLICATIONS, BOOKS, ETC

Institutional Affiliation

Thomas is a Typographic Careers Consultant in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading where he advises on the careers syllabus for its BA Graphic Communication course. Duties involve both strategic thinking about the future of design careers and the running of lectures and workshops for students across all three years of the course.

Memoir

“We arrived at a strange hour at Phnom Penh airport and used the Visa on Arrival option, where a raggedy man in a makeshift booth rubber stamped our Canadian passports after a short flight. It was late and my dad recalls trying to check into a hotel room that had only one bed, which I refused, after which we tuk tuked around in the middle of the night if I remember correctly trying to find a hotel. I remember the first hotel that I refused – dimly lit but squinting you would see grande architecture from another time, large open hallways and a minimal discreet panel of hotel staff that looked a bit off in trying to get hotel staff at least from a young Canadian perspective in my mind. That would have been in the late 90s, early 2000s. I didn’t know my dad well yet but this is one of our memories. Early trips to China, and Hong Kong, really shaping things for me because I didn’t have anything like that on my radar during my formative years. Subsequent trips by my dads or my own volition, always with my dad there on arrival sometimes briefly sometimes longer. The long memorable trip in the South of China with my dad there, and actually no memory of a camera as his guide, maybe one the only times. Guangzhuo, after being asked, i described as a boring random Chinese city, mainland, dirty at the time, not much going on. Upon sharing this story with others familiar with the place, discovered it had a blossoming night life scene among locals and settlers. Not to downplay the phone call from Jonathan, part of a family friend group that was really the backbone for a lot of this. Jonathan as the story goes arrived in Hong Kong and adapted to have almost perfect Mandarin Chinese. Began writing for major art world publications and eventually joined Art Basel as a sort of gatekeeper for new artists in that space.”

BC BookLook

World Tour

From Democratic Aesthetics to Digital Culture Tenth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies Sep 11, 2025 – Sep 12, 2025 at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France UNIQUEWAYS Podcast Report THEMED PANEL: INNOVATION SHOWCASE

Information, Medium & Society: Twenty-Third International Conference on Publishing Studies June 25 – 26, 2025 University of Hawaii at Hilo UNIQUEWAYS Podcast Report THEMED PANEL: INNOVATION SHOWCASE

Human Learning and Machine Learning—Challenges and Opportunities for Artificial Intelligence in Education Thirty-Second International Conference on Learning July 08 – 10, 2025 University of Granada, School of Education UNIQUEWAYS Podcast Report THEMED PANEL: INNOVATION SHOWCASE

The Converging Challenges for Inclusive Education: Intercultural Competences and Digital Literacies in Global Contexts Thirty-First International Conference on Learning July 10 – 12, 2024 Utrecht University UNIQUEWAYS Podcast Report THEMED PANEL: INNOVATION SHOWCASE

Traveling Concepts: The Transfer and Translation of Ideas in the Humanities Twenty-second International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities June 26 – 28, 2024 Sapienza University of Rome, Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies Unique Ways of Prototyping THEMED PANEL: WORKSHOP PRESENTATION

Art for Sustenance Nineteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society May Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea UNIQUEWAYS Podcast Report THEMED PANEL: CREATIVE PRACTICE SHOWCASE

New Aesthetic Expressions: The Social Role of Art Eighteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society July 05 – 07, 2023 Jagiellonian University Kraków, Poland User Experience and Sophocles THEMED PANEL: PAPER PRESENTATION IN A THEMED SESSION

Literary Landscapes: Forms of Knowledge in the Humanities Twenty-first International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities June 28 – 30, 2023 Sorbonne Université, Paris, France. Advanced Typography Workshops in Quarantine THEMED PANEL: PAPER PRESENTATION IN A THEMED SESSION

History/Histories From the Limits of Representations to the Boundaries of Narrative Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society July 04 – 06, 2022 San Jorge University, Zaragoza, Spain. Advanced Typography Workshops in Quarantine THEMED PANEL: FOCUSED DISCUSSION

New Agendas for Design: Principles of Scale, Practices of Inclusion Seventeenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices March 29 – 31, 2023 Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon Lisbon, Portugal. User Experience and Sophocles THEMED PANEL: FOCUSED DISCUSSION

Data, Media, Knowledge: Re-considering Interdisciplinarity and the Digital Humanities Twentieth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities June 20 – 22, 2022 Department of Mediterranean Studies, School of Humanities, University of the Aegean (Rhodes Campus), Rhodes, Greece. User Experience and Sophocles THEMED PANEL: PAPER PRESENTATION IN A THEMED SESSION

Design + Context Thirteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices March 01 – 03, 2019 St. Petersburg University, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation. The Helvetica Project THEMED PANEL: WORKSHOP PRESENTATION

Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society June 19 – 21, 2019 Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal. One Hundred Watch Faces THEMED PANEL: FOCUSED DISCUSSION

Fifteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society June 24 – 26, 2020 National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland. Unique Ways of Prototyping THEMED PANEL: WORKSHOP PRESENTATION

Advocacy in Design: Engagement, Commitment, and Action Fourteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices November 11 – 13, 2020 Pratt Institute, Brooklyn Campus, Brooklyn, United States of America. The A4 Project

Towards a Design New Deal Fifteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices March 02 – 05, 2021 University of Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico. Unique Ways of Prototyping THEMED PANEL: WORKSHOP PRESENTATION

Sixteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society June 15 – 18, 2021 The University of Western Australia, School of Design, Perth, Australia. Unique Ways of Making THEMED PANEL: WORKSHOP PRESENTATION

Critical Thinking, Soft Skills, and Technology Nineteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities June 29 – July 02, 2021 Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain. Podiums, Prototypes and Plato : Public Speaking in Terms of Classical Rhetorical Theory THEMED PANEL: PAPER PRESENTATION IN A THEMED SESSION

Back to Life: Seeking Vision and Purpose in Principles and PracticeSixteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices January 19 – 21, 2022 University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia.Advanced Typography Workshops in Quarantine Featured THEMED PANEL: FOCUSED DISCUSSION

Interviews

Casual Magic with Shivam Bhatt

Brave UX with Brendan Jarvis

UX Growth Podcast

Wireframe LIVE Podcast

Rambings of a Designer

UI Narrative Podcast

Canada’s Podcast

This Amazing Story Podcast

Thriver Podcast

Running Wild Podcast

No Fun City Podcast