Schedule

ICON12 Welcome + PRISMS Opening Remarks

Evolving Wordless Illustration as a Preventative Tool in the Discussion of Child Exploitation

This paper presents ongoing material from a practice-based PhD, researching the potential for wordless illustration through critically evolving traditional approaches of visual storytelling into immersive spatial contexts. The author contends that by deconstructing the bound book, opportunities for multi-linear storytelling arise which challenge the ways in which narrative experiences might be designed and understood. The author argues for the benefits of these ‘unrestrained’ readings which encourage deeper engagement and learning opportunities through group discussion.

What's Old is New: Illustration and "The Three Perfections"

The defining characteristic of illustration is an association with reading from 1830. Illustration contributes to reading in partnership with other visual elements in the mise-en-page across all modern print cultures. Reading has changed. The ancient scroll was replaced by the codex but has returned in electronic form. Publishing has receded; newspapers and magazines are disappearing. Fewer commissions are on offer. Today, illustrators are embracing authorship. But creating an entire work transcends the binary of "word and image." An ancient version of transcendence was captured in the expression "the three perfections," attributed to Wang Wei (699-759), referring to poetry, painting, and calligraphy. The triad has been updated and reinvigorated to encompass copywriting, illustration, and typesetting or lettering. This presentation will use Wang’s concept and episodes in the history of illustration to address the integration of writing, illustration, and design to reclaim illustration as a practice worthy of emphasis in liberally-minded curricula.

Exploring the Intersection of AI and Human Creativity: Empowering Agency in an Age of Uncertainty

This paper will present the development of a research inquiry that explores the integration of AI image generation methods within narrative based practice. The research seeks to question the nature of creative exchanges, iterations beyond the screen and the implementation of AI within module teaching.

Session Moderated Q&A

Break

Developing a Proposal for a Publisher

Specifically focused on academic book projects (those for students, scholars or practitioners), this interactive workshop session will include tips and advice on framing book proposals, how to choose a publisher, what to consider when developing your ideas and time for questions. The event will showcase real-life examples, and there will be activities for participants to get involved in.

Lunch Break

Envisioning A Collaborative Studio: Illustrators, Designers, Artists & Community Partners

Imagining education through the prism of collaboration, MICA faculty Rebecca Bradley and Sandra Maxa developed the graduate-level course, Graphic Design/Illustration Collaborative Studio, to fill a void in the curriculum. The course guides students through team-based, multi-disciplinary projects for non-profit clients and community partners. This presentation will share project case studies, workshops and lessons from 3 semesters, as well as stories of success and failure along the way. Collaboration and communication are the key outcomes — amongst the students, the co-teaching faculty and the clients. Students from diverse backgrounds and majors such as Curatorial Practice, Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography, Social Design and Design Leadership learn the challenges and the give-and-take of collaboration, and how, when engaged fully in teamwork, a project can be doubly rewarding. Students form a new understanding of professional practice that builds an appreciation for others and a process that is foundational.

Research and Writing in the Illustration Classroom

Where and how are BFA illustration students taught about research and writing in their practice? In this talk we will discuss the implementation of research and writing outcomes in the PCAD Illustration program including scaffolding, resources, successes, and areas for improvement.

How Critical Reflective Methods Can Inform Studio Practice

For over ten years, the Masters in Illustration program at The Glasgow School of Art has developed critical reflective methods to inform students' studio practice. The program requires students to identify their position in communication design practice within a broader historical, social, and political context. The program has been transformational in helping students identify and locate their practice in this landscape, resulting in graduates pursuing careers as practitioners, researchers, curators, and art activists. I will reflect on the range of approaches employed by the team over this period, their effectiveness in supporting students to reflect critically on their studio practice, and how the program has enabled students to transform their practice. Examples of student work will provide context alongside graduate feedback on how the critical reflective methods have informed their studio practice. Keywords: Illustration research, authorial practice, critical reflective methods.

Worldbuilding in the Classroom

With recent technological advancements, it is becoming increasingly important to train illustrators who are thinkers first and foremost. Worldbuilding, the process of creating both the visual language and imagined inner-workings of an environment, encourages students to create constraints based on an internal logic, and practice working within them. Worldbuilding further adds authorship to the design process, and opens dialogues on ecology, culture, history, and representation while giving students a channel in which to find and develop their visual voice. In this presentation, I will outline a working model for integrating worldbuilding into illustration curriculum. Illustration: World and Voice, an undergraduate course I have taught for the past two years, centers around a comprehensive, semester-long project exploring a simple prompt: create a travel journal for a world that doesn’t exist.

Session Moderated Q&A

Break

Home Truths: Folk Illustration as a Lens to Explore Place and Identity

Folk Art values tradition, simplicity and honesty as a reflection of ‘shared cultural aesthetics and social issues’ (Museum of International Folk Art) forming models of cultural heritage. Often associated with settler communities, Folk Art has historically enabled much-needed identification and generated a sense of belonging for migrant peoples displaced from their original homelands, sometimes through choice, but often through necessity of seeking asylum or claiming refugee status as a result of political estrangement or persecuted for minority religious or gender beliefs. These transitory peoples and communities often recognise Folk Art as providing a welcome and comforting sense of relief from persecution, by establishing and nurturing communities who share memories and tales of their collective pasts and promote hopes for their new lives and futures. This paper explores what the term ‘Folk Illustration’ might mean through a negotiated relationship between contemporary interpretations of folklore text and images.

Let's get physical: the use of Archives and Special Collections in supporting Undergraduate Illustration students at Edinburgh College of Art to develop and communicate richer and more varied personal research methodologies

Edinburgh offers the luxury of an unusual wealth of Museums, Archives and Special Collections. On the Illustration programme at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA), we use Archives and Special Collections in supporting Undergraduate students to develop and communicate richer and more varied personal research methodologies. This paper draws together reflections of students, staff on the Programme, Curators, Archivists and broader scholarship on the use of Collections in Higher Education pedagogy. In doing this I seek to map out ways of nurturing rich and sophisticated research methodologies when working with Illustration students. In reflecting on how students actually learn to undertake research, this presentation considers how effectively the pathway model in use at ECA guides students to explore, question and value a broader variety of materials in much more depth.

Drawing Connections: Developing Special Collections Curriculum for Illustration Pedagogy

Launched in Fall 2019, Washington University in St. Louis’ MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture (IVC) program offers students a multidisciplinary illustration education that not only aims to develop their illustration practice but also the research and critical analysis skills necessary for academia. The IVC program required curriculum includes over studio courses and research seminars, as well two Special Collections courses taught by Washington University Libraries staff. As the program has developed, the Special Collections courses have adapted to better complement and connect to the rest of the IVC program. This paper will provide an overview of this curriculum development as well as the challenges and successes of this instruction from the perspective of the library faculty.

Session Moderated Q&A