Neil
Poulton

Neil Poulton (born 1963) is a Scottish product designer, based in Paris, France. He specialises in the design of 'deceptively simple-looking mass-produced objects' and has won numerous international design awards. Poulton is best known for his designs in the fields of technology and lighting design and is often associated with manufacturers LaCie and Artemide.

Time magazine has included Poulton in 'The Design 100 – The people and ideas behind today's most influential design'.

The Centre Georges Pompidou museum in Paris includes six Poulton-designed objects including the Rugged Hard Drive in its Permanent Contemporary Collection. Poulton's first major solo exhibition 'design by neil poulton' was held in the Glyptotheque (Zagreb) museum in 2013. His Scopas lamp for Artemide was inaugurated into the first Permanent Scottish Gallery of V&A Dundee, Scotland, in 2018.

In 2019 Neil Poulton was named one of le FD100 – the 100 designers who are sharing French Design all over the world.

Neil Poulton has lived and worked in Paris since 1991.

Poulton gained a BSc degree in Industrial Design (technology) at Napier University in Edinburgh in 1985 and was awarded the SIAD Chartered Society of Designers Student Product Designer of the Year. In 1988, he gained a master's degree in design at the Domus Academy in Milan, Italy, under Italian architect Andrea Branzi and designer Alberto Meda. Poulton's tutors included Italian architect Ettore Sottsass, German industrial designer Richard Sapper, Isao Hosoe and Anna Castelli Ferrieri.

Neil Poulton first came to public view in 1989 as the creator of the 'Ageing Pens'. Also known as the 'Penna Mutante' (The Mutant Pen), these pens were made from a living, wearing plastic, which 'ages as layers of colour wear away through use'. The Ageing Pens were exhibited in London's Victoria and Albert Museum, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and The Axis Gallery in Tokyo.

Poulton worked briefly for French designer Philippe Starck in Paris from 1991 through 1992.