Review of Design 2 Share

After the YouTube phenomenon hit, South African-born interior designer, Irwin Weiner and his Chief Operating Officer Jay Johnson envisioned Design2Share as a space dedicated to online video content for the design of home and garden.  As head of Irwin Weiner Interiors since 1986, Weiner has been providing interior design for well-heeled clients for a long time.

The show is co-hosted by the bespectacled Weiner and his British-born head designer Nicola Chernicoff, who hails from exclusive Woodstock Designs firms of London, England. For Your Imagination, a digital media development company, produces and markets the show, which began airing episodes in April 2007.

Co-hosts Weiner and Chernicoff provide a conversational, albeit sophisticated approach to design issues for beginners. Their suggestions are more than simply pointing out a fashionable ottoman or end table, but also instructions in viewing your space with fresh eyes. As the first episode: Getting a Great Look, illustrates: one can view hotels, movie sets or anything else for personal inspiration. For Weinder and Chernicoff, the passion for interior design is self-evident and a cause to “be more aware of your surroundings.”

Season One consists of seventeen episodes, which progress from simpler fare like Setting a Great Table to more trepidacious interior design situations like Decorating a Half-Bath, and The Value Of a Fireplace. Weinder and Chernicoff seem to have a friendly and relaxed relationship with their online audience, with no problem giving advice from a comfy couch or in the midst of their examples like a model house with roaring fireplace. Theses are intercut with photographs of real homes and products and the overall effect is much like their well-designed, warm homes, drawing one into the hearth. Their philosophies and “pet hates” are discussed, as well as up-to-the-minute design items such as how to work around flatscreen TV’s.

Episode Two is a treatise on Professional Help, how and when one should contact a professional designer or contractor for your home. This is straight advice from two people extremely familiar with the process. Self-motivated designers with a desire to go it alone are encouraged to “knock themselves out,” but might need help.  Design2Share certainly provides that.