Melanie Chernock – Who said heartbreak couldn’t look good?

Interview with the up and coming designer behind the ‘Love Hurts’ projects, Melanie Chernock.

Today we are honoured by a long overdue female influence on Creative Chair. Melanie Chernock is a multi-disciplined designer living in New York. Melanie recently garnered attention and critical acclaim for her ‘Love Hurts’ project, a prototype break-up kit concept.

In this exclusive interview, I’ll be asking Melanie Chernock about the Love Hurts project as well as getting an insight into her other work.

You can see more work from Melanie Chernock on her website

Hi Melanie, to kick off could you tell us a little about yourself?

Hi there! I am a graphic designer/animator/recent graduate based in New York.

Your work straddles a range of creative disciplines, is there one in particular that you feel more passionate about than others, e.g. branding or typography.

Branding is great because it covers many different creative disciplines. You come up with the logo but then from there you get involved with package design, environmental design, web design, motion graphics, etc.

Could you give some insight into your creative process?

All of my ideas start on pen and paper at first. I don’t touch the computer until much later. A lot of the time I make a numbered list to 100 and write down any idea that comes to mind no matter how stupid it is. This gives me a structured way to think freely. Usually, around 50-60 is where the magic happens. This doesn’t apply to every project – instead, I may just make many many sketches, but for the most part it’s all about experimentation.

Having recently graduated, are you left with any regrets about your time at college or any bad habits you wish you hadn’t picked up?

SVA definitely had its ups and downs, but overall I had an amazing experience there. As for bad habits, I became accustomed to working from 8pm-5am. These hours don’t translate well to working any normal job whatsoever, but I’m getting better.

Your ‘Love Hurts’ project garnered a lot of attention so could you tell us a little more about that project, e.g, was it inspired by a personal jilting?

The kit wasn’t created to spite anyone. Instead, it was inspired by an assignment given in James Victore’s class to create an activity book. I thought it would be more interesting to come up with a sort of activity kit instead. From there I thought of different types of kits, got into the idea of a first aid kit, and then came up with the idea for Love Hurts. James was great because even though my idea strayed far, far away from the original assignment, he was still supportive. His class was incredible because he gave each student full creative freedom to do what they wanted.

Where would you like to be in five years’ time?

Married to a babe and designing from my beach house in Malibu. One can only dream.

And finally, if you died and were reincarnated as a song, what would that song be?

I’m going to be boring and not answer. This question is too hard; I really have no idea!