Bravo's Shear Genius, a Project Runway for hairstylists, is back for its second season. Heavy on the "cut"-related wordplay, the show puts vaguely menacing Danish hairstylist René Fris (who we could swear we once saw in a Mentos commercial) in the Tim Gunn role and is hosted by actress/Kmartist Jaclyn Smith. Shear Genius celebrated its season premiere on Tuesday with a pop-up salon in New York's Times Square and recruited students from the School of Visual Arts, under the guidance of SVA 3D Design Program chairperson Kevin O'Callaghan, to design the temporary salon as well as ten salon chairs that Bravo's "The Dish" blog describes as "pretty damn amazing."

Among the wacky hair chairs is the trio pictured above. Created by Sarah Nguyen, the "DJ" chair (at far right) is a stack of hair-themed record albums ready for playing on its giant turntable base while Kathleen Ugurlu's "Jock" (center) is for the hirsute baseball fan (we think the batting helmet is a nice touch). But we find ourselves unable to resist the garden gnome-accessorized "Backyard" chair designed by Kaori Sakai in a bold palette of green, red, and yellow. It comes with a grass-tufted seat backed by a garden gate, a hose, cooler, and a full grill setup, complete with ketchup, mustard, and corn on the cob. Check out all of the chairs and vote for your favorite here. The winner gets a $5,000 prize, which we're hoping is payable in cash rather than hair products.

Over at Nerve.com, they've assembled a list of the "50 greatest commercial parodies of all time," most of them drawn from the post-monologue slot on Saturday Night Live. The list includes many of our favorites, including the SNL spots for Crystal Gravy (#16) and Calvin Klein "Compulsion" (#29), but where is the classic Grayson Moorhead Securities parody? Dan Akroyd shilling for the Bass-o-matic takes the #1 ranking, and we're pleased to see that this ad for the First CityWide Change Bank came in at a respectable #7.

As summer comes to an official close, we closed the voting in our first poll. The designers who will never eat brunch in this town again took an early lead, and kept it:

Who were this summer's hottest design newsmakers?
new curators Bergdoll and Sudjic	10%	(4 votes)
Yves Behar, $100 laptop whiz	24%	(9 votes)
The NDA 5, brunch-boycotting designers	43%	(16 votes)
Adnan Hajj, former Reuters photographer	16%	(6 votes)
Tom Anjello, viral marketing celebrity	5%	(2 votes)
(Total: 37 votes)

Congratulations Michael Rock, Susan Sellars, Georgianna Stout, Paula Scher and Stefan Sagmeister, who will each receive a bottle of the coveted UnBeige Sunscreen For Design Newsmaker Hotness (SPF 45).

Thanks to all who voted, and don't forget to vote in our current poll, about how bloggers should reappropriate photos for their posts.

Since it's warmer this week, we're hot for your answers to our burning question: What design newsmaker made the biggest splash this summer?

Was it the fist-bumping leader of Agency.com? New hires at MoMA and the Design Museum? Beautiful Yves Behar? Clone Tool Adnan Hajj? Or the "Regrets Only" mentality of the NDA5?

Polls close Thursday, when we crown the winner with a special summer-edition UnBeige Asks award.

Okay, summer ain't over quite yet, but before your cognitive memory is hogged by the new season of "Lost," we wanted to take a little inventory. That's right: Mom and Dad gave us UnBeige kids keys to the polling privileges. Take a moment to reminisce about the past few months...and cast your vote.

Who were this summer's hottest design newsmakers?

  new curators Bergdoll and Sudjic
  Yves Behar, $100 laptop whiz
  The NDA 5, brunch-boycotting designers
  Adnan Hajj, former Reuters photographer
  Tom Anjello, viral marketing celebrity