[1] Allison has a Bachelor of Science from Otago University and a diploma in Visual Communication Design from Wellington Polytechnic.
In 1988 Allison returned from Europe and started Moa Revival, a stationery company producing products with a notable emphasis on Kiwiana.
In the late 1990s a cartoon about a single woman living alone began to take shape; by 2000 this hobby had gained enough attention to demand an audience of its own.
She was inspired to create Cecily as a "representation of womanhood in New Zealand cartooning, which we didn’t have".
[1] She also creates the stationery range Moa Revival, and was a contributor to Three Words: An Anthology of Aotearoa/NZ Women's Comics.