"Thanks to James Dyson, we now know what Optimus Prime's prostate looks like." (Humphries, 2015)
"The most beautiful piece of design is not as beautiful as the ugliest fish." (Humphries, 2017)
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This is a website by Dr. Theo Humphries. It’s a hub-site that attempts to draw together many of the pies that Theo has his fingers in...
ABOUT DR. THEO HUMPHRIES MA (RCA) FHEA PhD
Dr. Theo Humphries is a designer, artist, and principal lecturer at Cardiff School of Art & Design (CSAD), part of Cardiff Metropolitan University.
His academic interests are humour-centred design, speculative and critical design; design fictions; and design philosophy.
Theo's current research considers how ideas from humour theory and entanglement theory might address how humour is (mis)understood in design, specifically how derogatory humour, as a response to design, has been historically misperceived.
Theo works in an interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary manner, through the creation of design projects and design artefacts, and through his teaching.
RESEARCH
Theo is currently undertaking a PhD that enquires ‘Can the humorous properties of certain design objects be explained by the concept of malentanglement?’.
Theo is a contributing researcher to the Transtechnology Research Group at Plymouth University, and a researcher in CSAD’s Metatechnology Research Group.
(Please see the ‘Things’ and ‘Words’ tabs for more).
TEACHING
Theo is currently a senior lecturer at CSAD. He mainly teaches into the BA and BSc.Product Design programmes and also CSAD's suite of Masters programmes.
Theo was previously subject leader for ‘Constellation’ (CSAD’s history and theory of art and design dept.) and for the Product Design Programmes.
Theo is a fellow of The Higher Education Academy.
Previously, Theo has led modules in MA, MFA, and MDes programmes, and in BA (Hons) Graphic Design, and BA (Hons) Illustration at CSAD. He has also taught Music Technology students, and Mobile, Game & Web Design students at CSAD.
Theo was course director for MA Design at University of Wales, Newport (Now the University of South Wales), and also taught into their Interactive Media programme.
COMMERCIAL
Whilst an undergraduate, Theo co-founded 3eyes with John Anthony Evans. 3eyes was a small but successful design consultancy that traded between 2000 and 2008. Through 3eyes Theo collaborated on international projects, concentrating his skills, energy, and 'caustic-edge' design ethos into commercial work for clients such as Sony (Berlin), Mattel (Los Angeles), and Nokia (Helsinki). 3eyes is no longer trading, but an archive of some of their projects remains here.
PREVIOUS STUDY
Theo graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2005 with a Masters in Interaction Design. Previous to this he studied Design Futures at the University of Wales, Newport (Now the University of South Wales), and graduated with a 1st class honours degree in 2002.
'OPEN UP' DISABLED YOUTH ORCHESTRAS
Theo is a founder trustee of OpenUp, a highly successful charitable company, based in Bristol, UK.
OpenUp Music empowers young disabled musicians to build inclusive youth orchestras. They work with these young people to develop accessible musical instruments and repertoire, challenge expectations and raise aspirations.
Since 2013 OpenUp have established the UK’s first six special school orchestras and in Autumn 2015 they launched the first disabled-led regional youth orchestra and aim to establish the first ever disabled-led national youth orchestra by 2018.
Dr. Theo Humphries, the author of this website, has asserted his right to post all text/images herein under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Material that is not the property of Dr. Theo Humphries has been identified as such, and may be exempt from Creative Commons.
