October 8, 2008

Redesigning Top Design

When the first season of Bravo's Top Design aired I watched every episode. The network was riding high on the success of Project Runway and Top Chef, so I assumed Top Design would follow in their footsteps. Although I found the first season of Top Design enjoyable, I think it really lacked the creative sizzle that the other Bravo reality competition shows.

The season 1 challenges always seemed a little lame to me. The designers have a $50K budget or something for each challenge to go pick out high-end furniture and accessories from that huge design center, then had to decorate a three-walled "room" for most of the challenges. I just felt like they were merely picking beautiful, expensive things and filling up fake rooms and calling it design. I think Jonathan Adler's horribly lame catchphrase of "see you later, decorator" said it best; They were just decorating.


With season 2 Top Design has been, well, redesigned with a fresh format and a tweaked judging system and new host. They've almost copied the format of Runway with India Hicks in the Heidi Klum role, Todd Oldham as Tim Gunn and the other wacky designers as the judges. I think it's familiar to the viewers and makes more sense in the end.

This season the designers are actually having to design. They've taken the challenges off-site to actual people's homes, bomb shelters and storefronts. We're getting to see the designers fill up entire rooms (or multiple rooms) with their personal design aesthetic, while sticking to more strict, realistic budgets. I have a feeling viewers much prefer watching the contestants transform a bedroom for $2000 instead of $20,000. Many more takeaways and inspiration. We're also getting to see them painting, building and crafting, versus just filling a room up with purchased stuff.

All and all, I'm much more interested in this second season of Top Design, and am interested to see what the finalists will have to do for their final challenge. What do you think?

Top Design airs Wednesday nights at 10pm on Bravo.

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