It would be hard to exaggerate Terence Conran's influence on the way we think about design in Britain today. In a career ning 60 years, the designer, retailer, restaurateur and property developer has had more of an impact than any other designer of his generation: he introduced us to flat pack furniture, helped transform the look of the British home with his shops Habitat and The Conran Shop, and established Britain's first museum dedicated to design, the Design Museum in London, where a major exhibition tracing his career opens next week.