Paul Priestman, Co-Founder, PriestmanGoode – Episode 44

On the programme this week is the designer Paul Priestman.

Paul started his business designing the packaging for Boots’ Number 7 cosmetics. Some 30 years later PriestmanGoode, the firm he started along with Nigel Goode, has become the go-to firm responsible for designing many of the seats, aircraft cabins, carriages, berths, beds, hotel rooms and spaces we inhabit when we travel.

Paul Priestman. Image courtesy of the practice.
Paul studied Industrial Design in London, first at Central St Martins and later the Royal College of Art. On the back of a competition win, he started Paul Priestman Design, which later became Priestman Associates and then PriestmanGoode in 1989.

The firm became hugely influential in the travel sector, with their acclaimed work for much, if not most, of the sector’s leading brands – from Virgin Atlantic to Air France; Austrian Railways to Transport for London; Accor Hotels to Yotel.

Many of PriestmanGoode’s projects including their speculative proposal for moving train platforms to their commissioned New Tube for London have helped propel them into the public consciousness. PriestmanGoode’s latest exhibition Get Onboard: Reduce. Reuse. Rethink at London’s Design Museum (until 1st March 2020) has reached a huge audience, helping us examine the waste that we generate when we travel and question how design can help us create more environmentally friendly products and processes for the travel industry.

On Architecture Masters we’ve talked to many architects who have turned their hand to product design and furniture design. For this week’s episode we wanted to explore the work of a designer who’s turned their attention to the spaces we inhabit.