Project Overview

Drawn as catching black and white illustrations that are applied to teatowels, calendars, greeting cards, stationery, lens cloths and much more Cecily comes into our homes as a nonthreatening friend who helps us laugh at our daily challenges.

Organisation

Cecily

Team

Celia Allison - Illustrator/graphic designer - "The Factory"
George Moran - IT , Wordsmith - "The Factory management"

Project Brief

Cecily is a satirical cartoon/illustrative figure. Initially running as a regular column in several newspapers and newspapers she is now more commonly found on various merchandise where she strikes the heart of many, particularly middleage women.
Cecily tells it as it is. She gives a platform to all those everyday thoughts and neuroses we experience but usually suppress. She exposes her fragilities and foibles with wry, self denigrating humour. We have to love her.

Project Innovation/Need

Cecily is a very unique cartoon. Whilst inspired by greats that have gone before her she is not derivative of any existing work. Nowhere in the world is there a single personality cartoon that assumes such reality.
She is aging with her audience.
Cecily loves men and refuses to put them down.

Design Challenge

In a world where everything is trying to be louder than the last thing Cecily's effectiveness comes from her quietness, her laconic style.
People see Cecily as a friend; they see her in their friends and in themselves.
The merchandise that Cecily occurs on is useful and well designed. They feels honed down like the captions beneath the drawings. Even the packaging is minimal if it exists at all.
You have to love the Cecily promotional glasses, modelled on Cecily's own that help you see the world through her eyes.

Effectiveness

Cecily has gone into the homes of thousands of Australians and New Zealanders via the funny merchandise on which she is printed. That's not to mention the many publications to which she has been syndicated and the powerpoint presentations she has helped to lighten and enlighten.
Cecily has a bimonthly mail out in which she writes her latest thoughts, augmented with cartoons on the topic and several postings on Facebooks, twitter and Pinterest every week.