Hilton Austin Hotel
Austin Grand Ballroom, 6th Floor

Hilton Austin Hotel
Austin Grand Ballroom, 6th Floor

Art as a real-world solution: Students design and execute murals to cover an abandoned school in the blighted urban core. Revitalizing a neighborhood while simultaneously shaping the visual landscape, students transform a community and their understanding of their artistic power to shape the world.

The struggle to merge creative passion with business savvy plagues many artists. Illustrator and Master of Coin, Yang reveals an economic strategy, including the basics of budgeting and finance rules, so that artists can set up the business side of their careers with an eye on future financial stability.

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Create an animated loop using traditional, lo-fi, stop-motion animation techniques in this hands-on crash course, taught by 3D illustrator Sickels of Red Nose Studio. It focuses on camera basics, choreographing movement in a miniature environment and wire armature construction.

Illustrators and designers work hard to solve visual problems, and also fall into staid routine and methods of working. This hands-on workshop utilizes improvisation, games of chance and collaboration to force artists out of their comfort zone, clear their mind and get them back to being awesome.

In this workshop, come explore the different ways you can draw on any inspiration—anywhere you are, using Adobe mobile apps like Adobe Illustrator, Draw and Adobe Capture. With these mobile apps, Creative Sync, and Creative Cloud applications like Illustrator and Photoshop, great ideas can happen anywhere and with these digital tools, great work can too.

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What makes strong illustration work in the eye of the viewer? Brodner will break down what makes the great ones great, and will challenge attendees to pump up their ideas. This lecture will include a demo, a snap assignment, and a gentle, but helpful crit. Bring your sketchbooks, soft pencils. And lots of ‘tude.

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Staying relevant in today's evolving illustration field is critical. There is an increasing need for illustrator/designer hybrids possessing both skill sets. MICRO prepares students for the competitive creative world by working with actual clients and real-world deadlines.

This lecture shows an example of a new method of design education. The method was implemented with students from various classes of the School of Media, Illustration, HKU. It's based on the wish to transform students into critical designers who work towards form on the basis of content.

Fashion illustration is a niche in an industry of visual communication. It has been accepting of change with regard to media and levels of expressiveness in rendering over the years but like the fashion industry itself, it has been resistant to change with regard to representations of the body.

Sign painter Maloney developed her passion for typography, design and musical iconography into a custom sign-painting business. Learn about her historical approach and process, from commissioned assignment to finished product, in creating unique, hand-painted signs.

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As a full-time illustrator for over 30 years, Tate’s experience includes advertising, educational publishing, editorial illustration, product licensing and children's books. He discusses his journey to becoming a published children's book illustrator and offers tips on how to break into the business.

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Theory has a bad name in illustration circles, partly because modern art theory was used to discredit the field. But students who are given a chance to grapple with primary texts gain the skills and confidence to manipulate ideas and compete ideologically, citing Plato, Aristotle, Baudelaire, more.

Are you suffering from career stagnation, invisibility, creative block, financial devastation and general frustration? Based on his popular blog post, Senior Art Director Castellano discusses the top 10 (and 2 bonus) mistakes illustrators make in the business and practice of illustration.

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Amazing Hancock Bros. invade ICON9, bust out the old press and share their secrets of dirty printmaking. Revelers will mix, match and collaborate on imagery, making prints using woodblocks, print on paper, fabric, T-shirts and maybe even granny's old dirty drawers. Hijinks will ensue.

Create a limited edition wearable piece of art at Industry Print Shop. You’ll select from designs by featured artists and pull the squeegee on a shirt with as many placement possibilities as you desire. We’ll also collaborate on a group silkscreen project on paper. Workshoppers are responsible for transportation to the location. Industry Print Shop is accessible via public transit.

Meet in the hotel lobby promptly at noon and walk to Downtown Station to catch the 12:15 train to Crestview Station. Industry Print Shop is a ten minute walk from there.

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In this workshop, Webb will bring several examples of antique memory jugs and give an informal history of them. Participants will be provided with a Mason jar and the "borrowed memories" and media Webb uses to affix a myriad of objects to the jar. All are welcome to bring their own objects to create a personal jar.

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Wong and Jo will give a broad overview on how to pitch and develop an animated children's television series for a major cable network. They will attempt to demystify the process using storyboards, animatics, and production design examples from their own and others' pilot experiences.

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This follow-up presentation to the 2014 ICON8 paper announcing the first-of-its-kind textbook on the history of illustration traces the process of weaving together the writings of 30-plus scholars, academics and practitioners, and considers the learning outcomes that the book aims to facilitate.

Digital media networks question the long-regarded rules of illustration practice, particularly illustrators’ personal visual language and the semiotic nature of illustration. Do we need to change perspectives on how illustration works?

Do most of today’s award-winning illustrations challenge dominant power paradigms or do they consider oppressive hegemonic representations as common sense? What happens when illustrators try to depict “the other?” How can we avoid these pitfalls and their consequences?

Can you survive alien worlds, vampire love triangles, and way too many zombie uprisings—then live to illustrate the tale? Join Panepinto, Creative Director of Orbit, on a journey down the genre wormhole to the exciting—and sometimes life-threatening—world of sci-fi/fantasy publishing.

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The Internet provides endless possibilities for moving images. Artist Mock shows how looped animation informs her approach to illustration, contextually and technically, and demonstrates how to construct animated GIFs and optimize them for mass dissemination.

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Through student-led initiatives, live projects, exposure to alternative industries, and challenging interventions through critical and insightful industry pioneers, this paper maps how the course has achieved success in producing grads who practice, teach and research new approaches to illustration.

Hosted at the legendary Alamo Drafthouse in downtown Austin, audience members will experience a kinetic cinematic adventure, complimented with food and beverages. This animation screening will feature a curated showcase of narrative, experimental, looped and commercial motion shorts. PRE-REGISTRATION REQUIRED.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE, 320 E. 6th Street Austin TX 78701

Via public transportation, participants visit Helms Workshop, an award-winning brand design studio. The next stop on the tour, Yard Dog art gallery and Uncommon Objects, open their doors for a behind-the-scenes tour of two Texas treasures.

Travel: We will be meeting in the lobby of the Hilton at 8am to take 30 min ride on the NO 801 bus and a 10 min walk to Helms Workshop. When finished will be taking the NO 801 bus back toward the Hilton and stopping half way to visit Yard Dog art gallery. After which you can enjoy the shopping on Congress Ave or return directly to the hilton via another 15 min on the NO 801 bus.

A day pass for the bus costs $3.50 and can be purchased from the bus driver, through the CapMetro phone APP, at most local grocery stores or the visitors center at 602 E. Fourth St.

Marketing strategies can bridge the divide between invisibility and success. This workshop ushers attendees through the full process of effectively generating paid client work, including how to use a limited network to introduce ideal clients to their work and other productive promotion methods.

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How can an artist fluidly appropriate their own fine art into illustrations for clients? Explore the connection between personal work, products, and licensing. Gina and Matt will share their creative and business decisions, and engage students in hands-on projects aimed at developing personal themes.

Webster, creator and founder of KyleBrush.com, invites guests to explore the exciting ways Photoshop can beautifully and convincingly emulate natural media, thanks to the custom brushes he created. Oils, dry media, and watercolors will be demonstrated.

Workshop requirements: Laptop loaded with Photoshop CS5 or higher, a pressure-sensitive drawing tablet and stylus (Wacom Intuos or Cintiq preferred), or iPad with recent version of Astropad app and Apple Stylus, Kyle’s Ultimate Megapack, and Kyle’s Real Watercolor brush sets.

Digital sketching tools are becoming more sophisticated, but does that mean they should replace good ol' pencil and paper? Guests take an in-depth look at a lettering artist's process and discover why they don't have to feel like a luddite for integrating analog time into their work flow.

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We live in a world where it seems like everyone is talking to us and throwing advertising at us, where corporations control the conversation. Zine World is a hands-on workshop that provides an opportunity to create and self-publish something that is custom to attendees’ personal interests and perspective.

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Illustration has been relatively insular throughout the 20th century. What happens when illustration education is brought to underprivileged and underrepresented populations? How can students, educators and professionals practice consciously including individuals outside of our present communities?

This project was conceived to engage students in a critical discourse using the medium of comics at the Art Gallery of Ontario. As a mash up of genres, traditions and demographics, it provided new intersections for the students, professors, museum curators and the audience, both live and online.

Keeping up with the changing face of Illustration, standing by a solution based model and calling on the illustrator to identify as a maker/artist who creates a body of work that in turn influences and ultimately drives the culture at large, is the future.

Freelancers often navigate difficult career decisions with no discernible roadmap. Attorney Tobin and illustrator Hunt discuss different contractual situations and how to set a price, control terms and make sure artists' rights are contractually protected.

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Chronicle Book’s Senior Art Editor Watson Payne and author/illustrator Rothman illuminate the process of getting a book published. From proposals and contracts to scheduling, production and marketing, attendees will be guided through every step of making a successful publication.

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Millennials are utilizing nomadic ways to benefit from the instability that arises from rapid change. This emerging culture cultivates the resilient qualities needed to thrive in a world with few borders and boundaries. It demands changes in the way we prepare students for future creative careers.

Online education is often pitted against in-person education as a replacement or revolutionary disruptor. So many ways exist to increase student motivation through the integration of online learning and classroom learning. Students need mentors and classmates, social & participatory skills, now more than ever.

You landed that dream job for a challenging client and need to come up with sketches by the end of the day. How do you get creative ideas under pressure? Kunz shares examples, including rejected ideas, and methods of visual problem-solving in the fast-paced world of editorial illustration.

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Join artist Drescher on an improvisational bookmaking escapade, making drawings transform into an experimental narrative. Bind a rice paper book and fill it with drawings morphed from ink bleeding through the pages. The books will be photographed and transformed into animated GIFs.

Geared toward illustrators, this hands-on workshop covers some of the possibilities that After Effects offers motion artists, including layered compositions, type and video samples. This course is an opportunity to get artists started and inspire future motion projects.

Participants are required to bring a laptop with Photoshop and After Effects installed.

Using their personal sketchbooks, attendees will do exercises to learn more about dynamic action as well as create a variety of silhouettes with paper and ink. By the end of this hands-on workshop, everyone will have illustrated a new sketchbook cover.

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As visual storytellers, illustrators often talk about narrative but rarely about words. This workshops focuses on practicing basic techniques for editing language, sharpening the relation between image and text. What should be said at all? What kind of words should be used? And why does it matter, anyway?

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How are educators today preparing students, in the classroom and online, for a changing industry and global market? Join the Rountable discussion, hosted by Sam Weber, with Nannette Hoogslag, Lee Ford, Petrula Vontrikis, Lynda Weinman, Laurie Burrus, and David Terrell.

Journalism is an active construction of history. When women, people of color, and LGBTQIA folks are not visible as authors or subjects, their history is fatally impoverished. This workshop approaches graphic journalism as a radical act and explores how its hybrid form is a powerful tool for cultivating visibility.

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Small shares insight about the behind-the-scenes process of editorial art, from ideation to publication. This talk includes candid conversations about sketching, critique, and the collaborative teamwork between art directors and illustrators.

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Ballet Folklórico

Join Joyce, 2012 Academy Award winner for best animated short, on a virtual tour of the Moonbot Studios facilities in Shreveport, Louisiana. See where and how this storytelling studio creates whimsical worlds that inhabit animated film, apps, books and video games.

ICON’s signature portfolio review and marketplace event. The ICON9 ROADSHOW is a pop-up event and marketplace showcasing the work and wares of over 60 exhibiting illustrators and artisans. Book signings, installation, unusual books and handmade objects play a role in this high energy, exciting three-hour event during the Opening Night Cocktail Event. The Roadshow welcomes all Attendees, and is open to guests, local art directors and the public.

Kunz examines what compels us to make art and the different ways in which art is important. She talks about the ups and downs of her award-winning career (including some funny and not so funny examples) and shares her 10 tips for creative success.

The ongoing controversy surrounding the battle over the Orphan Rights Bill has stirred up a lot of fear and confusion. Tobin, an attorney focused on creative professional issues, explains what Orphan Works is, how it will affect our industry, and how to not get swept up in the hype.

This round table discussion covers everything from the artists’ origin stories in zines and comics to their current animation work. They examine the animation industry’s current interest in hiring artists from other media, and the joys and challenges of transitioning from illustration to television.

Sever, an Austin local, discusses her transition from designing mass-produced fashion for a clothing line to creating one-of-a-kind, wearable art at her studio. Using chain stitching embroidery techniques, her custom products involve a collaboration between client and maker.

An illustrator and painter from Denmark, Drescher creates arresting images for books, paintings, murals and illustrations that have inspired illustrators and artists for over 30 years. Often artists have one or two picture architectures in their head, and Drescher discusses how to use these structures to create images throughout a career.

Visual communication is a recorder of culture and history, yet it continues to be an invisible innovation. Carroll discusses how society can capitalize on illustration and design to unify communities, overcome language barriers, and challenge human rights and social justice issues, one problem at a time.

Refn and Bors sit down with moderator Steve Brodner for a discussion on working styles, state of political discourse in Europe and America, how they each have dealt with controversy and its fallout, working with artists and editors around the world, cultural differences, and more.

Pentagram partner Stout talks about the art of editorial illustration in the context of his new book, Variations on a Rectangle: Thirty Years of Graphic Design from Texas Monthly to Pentagram (UT Press). An advocate of illustration and illustrators, he was awarded the 2010 Richard Gangel Art Director Award.

This session discusses journalism, illustration, crafting non-fiction narratives, and the different experiences of working on a team or as a solo artist in the rapidly evolving field of graphic journalism.

Webster shares how his career as an illustrator, educator and game designer led to founding KyleBrush.com, the company behind an ever-growing and indispensable library of digital tools for professional artists.

Join the artist and author as she talks about subverting the mainstream in life and art. Garcia’s artistic through-line spans the generic suburbs of Southern California, Disneyland, dystopian fairy tales, punk rock, and the Lowbrow art scene of Los Angeles.

Balancing life and work is tricky, writing estimates is scary, and retirement funds are confusing. These friends have been chatting about these challenges for years, giving each other advice. With a combined 50 years’ experience, these smart women share what they’ve learned.

A common myth among professionals in the publishing industry is that dismantling the status quo isn’t their problem. The truth is, change is only possible if we’re all in on it. As a queer Latina artist and editor, Kayla E. discusses why we should all actively work toward a more inclusive industry.

Born in Germany, raised in Waco, Texas, and having lived in Austin for 20 years, Burckhardt returns to the U.S. The award-winning fine artist and illustrator speaks about his vast experience straddling different cultures and creative disciplines.

An art director is at once a curator, shepherd, diplomat, matchmaker, coach, critic, translator, philosopher and storyteller. New York Times Art Director Zsigmond contemplates these roles while offering her insights on editorial illustration, art and comics.

Victore will speak about how to be your badass self, sharing a short history of how he stopped following the rules and turned his career into a calling. Make work that matters, have an opinion, and love something other than yourself.

TALL TALES ICON9 GROUP SHOW

Tall Tales is a juried group show of original art from ICON speakers and attendees. The show will open on Friday, July 8 at 8 p.m. for ICON attendees, speakers, and their guests. The show will be on view at The Lion’s Nest Gallery in Austin, Texas, a hybrid gallery, retail shop, and art-making studio within walking distance of the main conference venue and hotel. http://www.thelionsnest.com/

The Lion’s Nest, 1008 E. 6^th Street, Austin TX 78702

Join Smith-Kirkley, Mathers and Nohl as they discuss how, as creative entrepreneurs, they built illustration-based businesses. They share actionable intelligence on developing multiple revenue streams and crafting business ventures with the skills and expertise you already possess.

Alko and Qualls share how they came to collaborate on their award-winning picture book, The Case for Loving. As married illustrators who have been creating their own books and artwork separately for 15 years, they discuss the benefits and challenges of collaborating.

Hopeless teenager-turned-happy illustrator-turned-workaholic owner of Magikon Publishing, Norwegian Størksen tells a career story of both steady direction and random choices, where the common denominator is a passion for illustration.

Thompson (a.k.a. Freestylee, Artist Without Borders), discusses his work as an illustrator, activist and designer in the fight for global and societal change through the power and passion of the poster.

An image out of place is is an uncomfortable image. The uncomfortable causes rejection and rejection is a mirror which causes reflection. An image out of place is an image in the right place.

ICON9 attendees get their chance to thrill us from the big stage with their tales of illustration, design and making art.

Jill Calder
Horses, Teeth & Bloody Royalty: Illustrating a Scottish Hero

Beverley Coraldean
Fear of Missing Out: How Animation Kick-started My Illustration Career

Tom Froese
I Am an Inky Illustrator

Cynthia Morris
How I Ditched Practical Advice to Follow an Unlikely Illustration Career

Lenny Terenzi
Just Create. Life, Love, Art, Community

Kenton Visser
Yes, Virginia, There Is a Catharsis

Award-winning illustrator Zhu speaks about her process of working with analog materials and adapting to the always-demanding and ever-quickening pace of the digital world.

How do creative people navigate working together to achieve a common objective? This session covers the pros and cons of sharing a studio for eight years.

Where do ideas come from? The inspiration muse? A dusty basement? New Jersey? Correll's illustrated talk focuses on keeping a sketchbook, doodling, braistorming and inspiration, reflects on the hours of mental anguish required to create a one-line drawing of a funny looking cat, and how to deal with drawer’s block.

In an era of digital production, hand-painted signage not only stands out artistically, but also provides a visceral connection to community, nostalgia and narrative. Maloney discusses how her roots of sign-painting iconography and design informs her process at Red Rider Studios in Taylor, Texas.

“Today I wrote nothing. Doesn’t matter,” wrote the Russian poet Daniil Kharms in 1937. Of course he didn’t write nothing; he wrote, “Today I wrote nothing.” This talk explores the artistic and philosophical benefits of idleness, drawing from a variety of artists who have excelled in this elusive craft.

Virtual Reality does more than just create a clever illusion. The conventions of storytelling are fundamentally transformed when the viewer becomes an active participant. lllustrators and designers play a crucial role in developing immersive media. What are the challenges and rewards of working in VR, and how might it affect culture?

Davis discusses the making of images—images that hide things, that reveal things, that show pleasing reflections—and how sometimes we find an image that’s a stranger’s hand that reaches inside us, rearranges us, and pulls away again.

Yi and Elfman will read from "Oh the Moon" an illustrated novel, while providing a live music score. They will speak about the madness about life and the Devil himself/herself. There will be music, story-telling, power-pointing, and debunking of myths.