By Zorian Edwards, Staff Writer
The new Willie the Wildcat mascot costume made its official debut during Founders Week, but ever wonder about where it came from? Daemen’s very own Annamarie Pope created the new version of Willie.
Pope is a second-year animation major who has been designing mascot-type costumes for around eight years and professionally for four years under the online alias Rappi Tappi. The idea came to them during their freshman year and they were given an official statement on the project during their sophomore year.
“I performed as the mascot my freshman year and noticed the suit was in pretty bad shape,” Pope said. “I talked to the athletics department about it and pitched the idea that I make a new suit for them. After they looked through my portfolio and we talked an estimate price over, I was given the project.”
During the creative process, Pope utilized elements from the Daemen logo, including the overall face shape and colors. Taking inspiration from more established mascot designs, Pope created the sketch above.
“When I make costumes and puppets, I’m often inspired by the work of Disney’s theme park characters and animated films in general,” Pope said. “I use a lot of techniques used by professional mascot artists for theme parks and costume makers that create works for cosplay/ personal original characters.”
Willie the Wildcat first appeared on campus in 2003, today Willie can be found on social media, all over campus, and as online GIFs. The Willie we know and love today was given to us by Daemen alumni and staff member, Cameron Garrity. Garrity is the associate director of branding and design at Daemen and the team fulfills all of Daemen’s graphic design needs. It is because of this he has drawn Willie since 2020.
“When I started my position in MarCom [Marketing and Communication] in January of 2020, we saw that the mascot version of the character played really well on social media and we began coming up with ideas to use him more for general awareness efforts,” Garrity said. “One of my first weeks here, I actually performed in the costume on ice skates for a video promoting the nursing program. March 2020, of course, we needed to course-correct due to the pandemic. Having anybody get into the costume was seen as a significant health risk, so I suggested creating an illustrated version of the character, based off of the costume we were using at the time, that could be used as a stand-in. This led to the creation of Williemojis — what we eventually called the drawings when we uploaded them for use on GIPHY.”
Now Willie has connected with the community once again after his new debut.
“I love the new costume,” Garrity said. “What Annamarie has created is truly a work of art. I’ve always wanted Daemen to have a mascot costume that was specifically designed and built for us — not something from a catalog or costume warehouse. What we have is a particularly unique asset in a school’s marketing arsenal.”