Picture an interior designer and chances are you’re not envisioning a bearded, burly, tattooed ex–punk musician from New York City—unless, of course, you tuned in to season four of Home & Garden Television’s reality show competition Design Star. Devoted watchers are already well familiar with season winner Antonio Ballatore, the man the judges deemed their “bad boy of design.”
“I’m definitely shocking to the traditional HGTV crowd,” says Ballatore. “I build houses and 1920s-themed sets, create live special-effect explosions, design over-the-top kids’ rooms, and modify old hot rods. There’s no limitation to where I can take my creativity.”
It’s exactly this brazen enthusiasm that helped Ballatore advance past the 10 other finalists throughout the show’s weekly interior design challenges. In one episode, his unorthodox decision to ornament a wall with fluorescent-pink geese was a surprising hit with the judges.
Click here to read the rest of the piece, which appeared in Inked Magazine January 2010.
