ICON 7!

From June 13th to June 16th, I was in Providence, RI for the 7th annual Illustration Conference. It's taken me awhile to write about it because it's hard to sum up something so jam packed with awesome! Rather than outline everything that happened at ICON7, I decided to just share some of my favorite notes and drawings from the weekend (Besides, I accidentally left my camera battery at home so my sketchbook is the only record I have).

Here's the ICON7 program and the sketchbook I used for my notes, which was made by the lovely Rachel Self.

ICON's main stage in the VET Theater at the Renaissance Hotel: 

The Thursday night Opening Ceremony was FANTASTIC! Huge, wacky puppets from Big Nazo danced on stage while the  "What Cheer?" Brigade blasted their energetic music. You can watch a bit of the performance here. 

A hard act to follow, ICON7 President--John Hendrix--easily met the challenge with an inspiring speech about illustrators as "tangible contributors" to our culture.

Big Nazo's four largest creatures sat on sides of the stage for the rest of the conference, so I HAD to sketch them:

Jessica Hische said a lot of witty, honest, and compelling things with much better lettering than I could ever do in my little notes.

I really enjoyed Kiel Johnson's presentation and his hilarious Cypress Valley High short film.

The XPLANE company and what they do (Business Design Thinking) really appealed to me.

Lynda Berry was Friday night's Keynote speaker. She was so wonderfully warm, open, perceptive and gut-busting HILARIOUS, I had to go and buy one of her books afterwards. Lynda and her long time friend Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons, shared their comics and stories with the audience like we were all just comfortably hanging out in her living room.

I loved the "Seen Through the Sketchbook" talk with Marcellus Hall, Jillian Tamaki, and John Cuneo.

Out of all the incredible presentations at the conference, I have to say the talk from Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson, of Idiots' Books (Oops! spelled it wrong in my notes), was my absolute favorite! They had great stage presence, content, pacing, collaboration, visuals, writing, and both visual and written jokes! They make such a perfect team and I will confidently label them the...

Basically, ICON7 was so worth it! Even though I knew very few people in attendance, everyone I talked with was friendly and welcoming. (I came home with so many business cards and postcards!) I felt a part of this illustration community and I couldn't be happier with my career choice! 

If you want a little more on the conference, here's Mark Kaufman's clever summary of the event and a link to the hilarious AD email videos that played in between presentations.