Neil Poulton

Neil Poulton earned a degree in industrial design (technology) from Napier University in Edinburgh and received the 'Sir Chartered Society of Designers' medal for the best British student product designer of the year.
He earned a master's degree in design from Milan's Domus Academy in 1988, studying 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 appeared in 1989 as the creator of the 'ageing pens', also known as the 'mutant pen', which were made of a living, wearing plastic that 'ages as the layers of colour wear away with use'. The ageing pens have been shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Axis Gallery in Tokyo. Poulton worked briefly for French designer Philippe Starck in Paris between 1991 and 1992.

Poulton has served as a guest speaker, visiting professor, and adjudicator of graduate projects at schools around the world, including Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, Domus Academy in Milan, the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia, EESAB in Rennes, Ensci (Les Ateliers) in Paris, and Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique in France. He has received numerous international design awards, including seven French 'etoile de l'observeur du design' awards, twelve German 'red dot design awards', five 'if' international forum design awards, three French 'janus de l'industrie' awards, two 'recommendation premio compasso d'oro' awards, and the 'best of the best' red dot design awards in 1994 and 2007.

His first major solo exhibition, 'design by Neil Poulton', was held in 2013 at the Glyptotheque museum in Zagreb, Croatia - his 'scopas' lamp was inaugurated in the first permanent collection of v & a dundee, Scotland in 2018. Poulton has also been a judge in international design competitions including the 'iF' design award, the apci observeur de design, the Hong Kong design award (hkda) in 2018 and the muse design awards in 2020.

In 2019 Poulton was inducted into the Napier University alumni hall of fame in Edinburgh, Scotland. Poulton was also inducted into France's 'who's who in France' in 2020.