“We have to pre-empt tomorrow’s problems and
find those solutions today”
“Design is more than just styling – it’s about making things better”
Paul Priestman MDes RCA, FRCA, FRSA
Creative Director and Chairman of PULI innovation. www.puliinnovation.com
Priestman is a world-leading industrial designer, known for envisioning and delivering complex, high-profile transport projects, including the New Tube for London, the Hyperloop passenger capsules, Airbus aircraft interiors and the Hong Kong Metro Trains.
He is an international design champion and expert, with particular experience in the UK, Brazil and China. He is regularly appointed by governments and cultural institutions for high-level advisory work and creative thinking. Priestman often represents the UK’s design sector abroad, including accompanying UK Prime Ministers on three delegations to China. He also delivers lectures on the future and business of design, including at the GREAT Festival of Innovation, Dubai Design Week, Design Indaba and the World Design Forum.
Among his advisory and design roles, Priestman is global creative director of CRRC Sifang Locomotive, Co Chair of the Design Age Institute Design Advisory Panel, and a member of the UK’s HS2 Independent Design Panel and a past president of the UK’s Design Business Association. Priestman founded the international design company PriestmanGoode in 1987 and chaired the company until March 2022. During his Chairmanship he oversaw it’s transition to employee ownership in 2016. PriestmanGoode has been listed by Fast Company as among the Most Innovative Companies in the world.
Priestman is best known for creating innovative design solutions for transport and travel – envisioning speculative, paradigm-shifting concepts as well as delivering large-scale projects for clients including the UK Department for Transport, Embraer, Transport for London, Heathrow Airport, Royal Caribbean and Virgin. His work encompasses a range of design beyond transport, however – from product to hospitality – working with industry leaders such as Accor and Honeywell to lead a step change in design approach.
A driving focus of Priestman’s work is demonstrating how design can improve life in a way that is sustainable for the planet. Far from designing for obsolescence, his work anticipates the social and environmental needs of the future and embraces circular economy principles, while harnessing technological innovation that centres intuitive human experience.
Priestman’s projects have reimagined and enhanced urban mobility – championing a radical improvement of public transport over a reliance on fossil fuel-powered cars – and shown how the design of anything, from a smartphone stand or water-saving tool to an airline meal or mobility device, can improve efficiency both in terms of resource use and personal experience.
His innovative, solutions-focused approach has earned him numerous design awards, including the London Design Festival Design Innovation Medal. Under his leadership, PriestmanGoode has won a Queen’s
Award for Enterprise – the highest official UK awards for British businesses – as well as multiple International Design Excellence Awards, Red Dot Product Design Awards, Travel + Leisure Awards and London Design Awards.
As a thought leader on the sustainable future of cities, transport and product design, Priestman has been featured on BBC World News, BBC Radio 4 and CNN, as well as in Wired, the Evening Standard, The Times, The Economist, the Financial Times, Forbes and El Mundo.
Work by Priestman has been exhibited at the Design Museum and Science Museum in London, as well as the British Embassy in Paris and the Pratt Manhattan Gallery. His game-changing radiator designs for Bisque are installed in the permanent collections of the V&A Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Modern Art.
He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has been voted one of the
most influential people in the UK by The Times and one of the most influential Londoners by the Evening Standard.