Sir Terence Conran is one of the world's best-known designers, restaurateurs and retailers. Born in 1931, he founded the Conran Design Studio in 1956 and later the Habitat chain of home furnishings stores that revolutionised the British high street in the Sixties and Seventies. In the Eighties Terence founded The Design Museum, the world's first museum dedicated to design.

He is an honorary professor of the University of Creative Arts, and was knighted for his services to design in 1983. Terence has written more than 50 books since the Fifties that broadly reflect his design philosophy including most recently, Plain, Simple, Useful and Conran on Colour.