[1] The series featured designers Chris Hyndman and Steven Sabados redesigning living spaces for clients.
[2] Following from the duo's earlier series Designer Guys, in which they allowed their debates and disagreements over design choices to be depicted as part of the series, the format of Design Rivals saw the duo meeting the homeowner in a neutral space away from the home, so that their initial design plans would be based solely on their impressions of the client's personality rather than familiarity with the space.
[3] Sabados described this format as having been inspired by the fact that families often disagree about design decisions in their home, so he and Hyndman wanted to depict their process of resolving their differences of opinion to arrive at a design plan they were both happy with.
The duo subsequently moved to CBC Television to create the daytime talk show Steven and Chris.
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