When the seeds that would bloom into BoConcept were planted by cabinet makers Tage Mølholm and Jens Ærthøj, in the small Danish town of Herning in 1947, its founders could hardly have foreseen that their nascent furniture company would eventually become a global leader in contemporary Scandinavian design.

But such is the way. BoConcept now operates 300 dedicated stores in over 65 countries, and many of its pieces – from the minimal, organic and ergonomic Adelaide chair, designed by Henrik Pedersen; to Morten Georgsen's classically-inflected, ceramic-topped Santiago dining table – have become touchstones for interior designers and aesthetically minded consumers alike. Its global reach is supported by dedicated franchisers, such as Carlos Salamonovitz, who recently brought BoConcept's vision to a new residential project in Mexico City.

The modest origins of BoConcept – the furniture company founded in 1947 by young cabinetmakers Jens Ærthøj and Tage Mølholm, in the sleepy Jutland town of Herning – belie its standing as a beacon of Danish design. By harnessing and refining the key tenets of heritage, simplicity, craftsmanship, functionality and quality over 70 years, the brand has become Denmark's most globally recognizable name in furniture. It's a fact exemplified in timeless pieces such as its midcentury-style Imola armchair (inspired by the form of a deconstructed tennis ball) and the marshmallow minimalism of its Bellagio sofa – not to mention a proliferation of more than 300 stores in over 65 countries.

Read in a void, Maison Forestier's remit of an ongoing 'quest for perpetual originality and mastery of the delicate balance between nature and design' may sound a little abstract. But the Parisian lighting brand has – since its topiary-inspired inception by Bernard Forestier in 1992 – carved a beatific niche in its industry, uniting passion, freedom and discovery to fashion radiant wares that meld unique aesthetics with keen functionality, to suit a diverse range of settings.

Ceramic tiles are a decorative form almost as old as time—originating in ancient Mesopotamia, where they were first used around 4,000 years ago. Today, they serve as a global motif, both ascetic and pictorial, available in a panoply of colors and textures. Formed from the elemental process of firing clay, minerals and water at high heats, tiles become a robust, hard-wearing material with a myriad of applications. 

In what is now Italy, tile use and production proliferated in the Roman era – not least in the form of intricate, technicolor mosaics – and the styles embraced in antiquity were an early precedent for those used today. The use of tiles skyrocketed further in the later Renaissance period, with Italian artisans perfecting the medium as an artistic medium, and the country remains perhaps the consummate producer of ceramic and porcelain tiling.