Yes, we all know: leading through innovation is easier said than done.

To most companies, the innovation process appears to be a black box. Scared of the supposed opaqueness of that myth-like phenomenon called innovation, they refuse to see that innovation is a skill that has gained transparency by in-depth research and professional debates in recent years. What companies therefore should start to bear in mind is that innovation is a capability that can be acquired and applied systematically in a wide range of business contexts.

Unruly Glass was the title of the exhibition that Mixcube hosted during the Salone del Mobile 2011 in Milan, featuring the creations of Italian Designer Alberto Nason. He has worked for many years with Michele De Lucchi, one of the most important and successful designers and architects in the international scene.

Our latest Faces of Design Spotlight: an interview with Markus Müller, designer and inspiration for our Report "Sex Toy Design - Market Size Matters".

Danish by birth and world citizen by adoption, Johannes Torpe is a volcano of ideas. Creative and cheerful, he leaves much to improvisation and good taste. His nightclubs and restaurants are an immediate success and thanks to a fruitful series of collaborations with food and furniture industry business patrons he has recently opened a new Beijing studio in the heart of the Chinese dragon.

Let's take the Oriental carpet, which the Germans often just call the "Persian". For many of us, this is the epitome of an obsolete bourgeois interior. Wherever there is an Oriental rug, that's where people "live", with their sofas, sideboards, and potted plants. The kind of place where Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was at home. Here people also know the rules of good manners. And on the table there is only the classic tableware: Dresden China, Nymphenburg.

In the small Portuguese town of Sagres, nested away at the end of the village, lies the Memmo Baleeira, a member of the Design hotels group.

Originally dating back to the 60s, the hotel was completely remodelled four years ago. Stepping inside, the interiors feel slightly labyrinthian - at least until you arrive at the lounge area, where the space opens up towards the sea...

The Domaine de Boisbuchet is situated in the Charente region in the south-west of France. Every year during the summer months, participants from all corners of the world come here for a colourful array of design workshops.

The Liquid Fusion workshop has been an important part of the summer academy programme at the Domaine de Boisbuchet for the last five years. In pursuit of their mission to teach the contemporary design world about glass, the Corning Museum of Glass provide their GlassLab equipment, a container especially designed to transport an entire glassmaker's workshop.

There are few areas of design that still serve to polarise quite as successfully as sex toy design, yet it is a fascinating design area to look at: a sex toy is one of the products that will ultimately be closer to one's body than any other object, that is interacted with in the most intimate moments and ways, and which thus has to meet design challenges of the most extreme kind.

This article looks at the topic from two viewpoints: the Creative's, and the Suit's, and we believe there is an attractive window of opportunity for young designers in the mix as well.

Asisi Visual Culture GmbH from Berlin is a cultural enterprise that stands for the creation of illusional spaces, both on a national and on an international level. Its founder, the artist Yadegar Asisi, has created the world’s largest 360° panoramas and is committed to the idea that the act of “seeing” and “understanding” is an essential factor in the development of the individual, and society as a whole. It is Asisi’s aim, with the aid of his exhibitions and educational programmes, to promote a lasting concept of visual culture.

Although the furnaces at the Holmegaard Glassworks were shut down in 2008, the Holmegaard brand still lives on. LOFT has met the creative director and two designers, and talked to them about the changes of the last few years and the future of the Holmegaard brand which has just celebrated its 185th anniversary.