IKEA is the design brand that has the most influence on the most people. But beyond selling flat-pack furniture, it also is highly active in the design space, collaborating with leading figures and embarking on social projects including its refugee shelters programme (not to mention the odd court case). More
IKEA is one of the world's most innovative and dynamic retailers – although our two most popular stories about the Swedish furniture giant over the past year were about designers who hacked their products. More
It's a surprise to find Apple outside the top 10, and even more so to find the tech giant trailing IKEA in our brands ranking. Yet while a few years ago our readers couldn't get enough of Apple, we've detected a waning of interest recently. More
One of the biggest surprises in our list is the fact that sportswear brand Adidas has come in ahead of its arch rival Nike. More
Omnipresent Google pops up all over Dezeen in a variety of guises: as a pioneer of self-driving cars; as a creator of virtual-reality painting software; as a rebranded company with a new logo. More
Sportswear brand Nike fails to qualify for our Dezeen Hot List top 20 by a whisker. With this being an Olympic year, the brand was particularly active, unveiling a raft of new high-performance products at a lavish ceremony in New York in the spring and following this up with a major presence at Milan design week in April. More
Melbourne-based skincare brand Aesop is well-known among Dezeen readers for its outlets around the world. The brand works with different architects almost every time, meaning no two stores are the same. More
Japanese design brand Muji is best known for its unbranded goods but behind the scenes it has long worked with a number of very well-known designers. More
Danish toy company Lego caught the attention of readers when its kit aimed at architects went viral on Dezeen's social media channels after it was included in our 2015 Christmas gift guide. More
Danish brand Hay is one of the most dynamic in the sector at the moment, expanding aggressively and engaging in a range of eye-catching initiatives and collaborations. More
Corten steel is the only trademarked material to make it into the top 100 of our Hot List. A perennial favourite thanks to its rusty patina, Corten is a form of weathering steel. More
Aristocratic brand Vitra makes the top 50 of our Hot List not so much for its furniture but for a warehouse it built to house its furniture. More
Eclectic Dutch furniture brand Moooi has been through a period of dramatic growth and change, opening a flagship store in New York, appointing a new CEO and launching a carpet brand and a range of soaps and shampoos for hotels. More
Technology giant Samsung took the brave step last year of commissioning avant-garde designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec to design a television. More
This was the year that car brand MINI relaunched its visual identity and made the leap into designing lifestyle concepts. It embraced the sharing economy with its Airbnb-style vehicle rent scheme and MINI Living installation in Milan, which explored the idea of shared accommodation as a solution to the housing crisis. More
Futuristic vehicles were all the rage this year, and German car brand BMW stayed ahead of the curve by embracing hybrid and electric technologies with innovations such as the i8 sports car. It also impressed readers by releasing a shape-shifting concept car that can predict your every move. More
Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter has evolved in the past year to become a powerful tool for financing architecture and infrastructure projects. This new route to getting large-scale projects off the ground was given a boost when Bjarke Ingels launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a smoke-ring-blowing chimney at a Copenhagen power plant. More
We began writing about Lexus last year, when the Japanese car brand started to release unusual ideas for concept cars. We featured a fully drivable vehicle made entirely out of cardboard and the LF-FC concept model, which was explored further in Italian duo Formafantasma's installation for the brand in Milan this year. More
Positioned at 79 in our overall Hot List and 18 in our ranking of brands, rental website Airbnb has changed the way we holiday and design our homes. More
Placed at 80 in our overall Hot List and 19 in our ranking of brands is Italian furniture brand Moroso – one of Italy's most influential design brands. More
Last year footwear brand Converse redesigned its iconic canvas basketball shoe and this year the popularity of that story has propelled the brand to number 81 in our inaugural Dezeen Hot List. More