Everyone is familiar with the saying “Life imitates art”. But for New York design studio Cheery Designs, founder and creative director Elyssa Dorf does the opposite. Art is an ever-evolving creative process that often represents a zeitgeist and a point in time that we will never see again. The Cheery Designs creative process is hugely influenced by changing popular culture trends, celebrating the things that we love as a society that characterizes us as a collective.
Cheery Designs is a design-centric lifestyle brand, established with the mission of spreading cheer and adding a pop of color to people’s lives. Everything that comes out of the Cheery Designs studio is designer inspired, street art style, trend centric, and steeped in pop culture.
Founder Elyssa Dorf is a huge reality TV fan and watches everything through an artistic lens on the lookout for fashion, design, art, and lingo trends. Her husband was also a film major and is a huge movie buff, so she pairs their collective passion for film and TV into new design ideas that capture the best of these worlds. She’s also constantly brushing up on her pop culture knowledge by watching The Today Show almost every morning.
As a passionate mental health advocate, Elyssa always pulls phrases, colors, and symbols that she believes help promote inner peace. This idea contributes to her mission to spread cheer and color as a healing method that helps people find joy and contentment in the everyday. These can be seen manifested in her work as peace signs, sunshine, smileys, and sunsets.
Nostalgia is at the heart of much of her work, particularly 90s trends and references – something that brings a lot of millennials and gen-Z a comfort from childhood. Images like retro skates, Swedish Fish, and Hershey’s Kisses are a throwback to simpler times. She is also heavily inspired by media publications with colorful, splashy aesthetics and recognizable USPs like PopSugar, BuzzFeed, and Refinery29.
The soul of Cheery Designs can be found in the heart of New York, one of the most creative and artistic hubs in the world. This affection for the city is all over the Cheery Designs collection, including one design of the iconic yellow New York taxi. When Elyssa isn’t working away creating new designs or arms deep in tie-dye, she can be found wandering the romantic New York sidewalks on 5th Avenue, studying window displays for designer brands, and seeking inspiration. The fruits of her labor can be seen in many of the Cheery Designs wall art canvas pieces that feature designer brands from Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel.
On her trips abroad Elyssa can be found taking pictures of just about everything, from art, to architecture to nature, before bringing it all home and adding it into her Cheery Designs inspiration portfolio. “You never know where you can pull patterns, colors, and ideas from,” she explains.
Cheery Designs is unapologetically bold, bright, and bursting with character. Elyssa’s passion for interior design means that Cheery pieces are designed to work with so many different styles and spaces. The ever-evolving nature of the designs means that there’s something for everyone, especially those with an affinity for trends and pop culture just like her.
Find out more about Cheery Designs on the website and Instagram.
