How it all started

At Sedaven High school (Heidelberg, Tvl, South Africa), about 1991 I (Jeannie) used to get letters from Jonathan with little cartoon sketch drawings. His favourite animal, elephants, my nickname, nagapie (bush baby), my favourite, squirrels…. And many other really cute pictures would always be drawn on the letters. The idea popped into my head 2004 while sorting out some letters and coming across these sketches. I scanned them in, coloured it a bit and printed it onto a shirt. On showing him the print he asked who did the drawings :o)

So from there we did some brainstorming and decided to start our own range, see what we could come up with for the fun of it. Well a year later it actually started to work out. I pitched up in Zimbabwe (where Jonathan lives), and we started trying to put something together on the computer this time for better printing quality. We discovered it to be a long process and spent 3 days on our first elly just drawing and trying to decide on colour and technique. Jonathan is the artist and does all the important parts of drawing and shading, I add the colour, texture and props. (Just as well we have been friends for so long, no turning back during stress :o)
 

Well from there we came up with a couple of pics, including our trademark and got onto the whole process of registering trademarks and copy rights and of course the whole designing and printing.

Jokes were made about the whole SARCDA exhibition when the jokes were challenged and snowballed and actualized… so the SARCDA Christmas trade & décor expo, August 2005 was our launching opportunity and market research for our new range. In 2006 we revamped and brought out a brand new image and range of products. This range is now booming which has broadened our clientele, even further than South Africa ;o)

In 2007 we had the exciting pleasure of attending shows in Honk Kong where we were able to source a few new products as well as cheaper options for our existing range. We were pleased to launch our new ranges and designs and products at the SARCDA Christmas show 2007.
 

We have also brought out a cycling kit which a group of us wore to cycle the 94.7km cycling challenge… our own ‘elly elly nice’ cycling team ;o)

We hope you have as much fun with it as we have designing it. Indulge in a gift simply ellylicious!