Nationality American Known for Advertising
publishing Role Artist Education Pratt Institute | Alma mater Pratt Institute Movement Art Nouveau Name Echo Chernik Period Art Nouveau | |
 | ||
Full Name Heather McKinney Born August 30, 1973 (age 51) ( 1973-08-30 ) Ellington, Connecticut Notable works Shadowrun, Mage: The Ascension, Vampire: The Masquerade | ||
Artist Of The Week Episode 4 - Echo Chernik
Echo Chernik (born August 30, 1973 as Heather McKinney) is an American Art Nouveau artist. Her motif is an art nouveau/jugendstil influenced style, with elaborate decorative borders, women (or pin-up girls) with flowing and entwining hair, sometimes accompanied by elaborate typography.
Contents
- Artist Of The Week Episode 4 Echo Chernik
- Early life
- Career
- Personal life
- Charity Work
- In the News
- References
Early life
Chernik was born in Ellington, Connecticut. She graduated summa cum laude from Pratt Institute in 1995 with a BFA in Communication Design | Illustration. She is a mainstream advertising and publishing illustrator, best known for advertisements and poster design.
Career
Chernik's early work included interior black and white illustrations for mainstream game companies such as FanPro (Shadowrun), White Wolf Game Studios, Wizards of the Coast and Chaosium. The earliest influences of art nouveau can be found in her works for Mage: The Ascension, developed by Phil Brucato, and Vampire: The Masquerade.
Moving into the mainstream advertising and publishing world, Chernik has worked on campaigns for Camel Cigarettes, Miller Brewing Company, Keystone (beer brand), DeKuyper Liquors, Gran Centenario Plata, Hype Manufacturing (NASCAR), Disney, Regal Cinemas, The State of Illinois Tourism, The City of New Orleans - Mardi Gras logo, Sears, Rocket Dog Shoes, Trek Bicycle Corporation - (Commemorating Lance Armstrong's 5th Consecutive Le Tour de France win). Publishing houses include: Random House Publishers; Penguin Books, whose titles include The Unicorn Chronicles and Color Your own Tarot; and Llewellyn Worldwide (cover art for a Silver Ravenwolf series, among others). Chernik's contributions to music promotion include designing Arlo Guthrie's 40th Anniversary Alice's Restaurant Massacree tour poster, displayed in 2005 at Carnegie Hall; and illustrating a poster for the Dave Matthews Band.
Personal life
Echo Chernik lives in Sammamish, WA with her husband, Lazarus, and their two children.
Charity Work
Echo's grandfather, Herbert McKinney, had founded the volunteer firefighters corp for Connecticut and Massachusetts. In 1987 and at age 14, Echo (under her given name) received her certification as an Emergency Medical Technician for the State of Connecticut making her, at the time, the youngest in the nation riding around in ambulances after school (and sometimes during). She later volunteered for the Ski Patrol, continuing her interest in serving the community and giving aid to the needy. In 2013, Echo took over a local community program that promoted gift-giving through the community. When she started, it served almost 150 families. In 2015, the group served moire than 2,000 in her home city of Sammamish and nearby Issaquah. Echo was honored to receive the 2015 Sammy Award for Environmental Stewardship from the Mayor of the Sammamish. Echo has been interviewed on radio and newspapers promoting the idea of intra-community gift-gifting as a way to build community-ties that harken back to barn-raising and sugar-bowl borrowing.
Shortly thereafter, Echo left the original organization to found the Gifting Greenhouse Group to continue her vision of a community focused free store to serve the city of Sammamish. On December 12, 2015, Echo coordinated volunteers and opened her home to over 100 children in the city of Sammamish to visit Santa. Santa donated his time for the event, as well as four photographers, over a dozen volunteers, and half a dozen elves. Gifts were donated by Santa (actually Calliope Games, Echo, and several charitable families).
Echo's vision of community service leads her to see community needs and reach out to solve them as best as she can.