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The ICON 7 Illustration Conference was held right here in RI this year, sponsored in part by good ol’ RISD. That was good news for Eric and I…we had our tickets reserved months ago, and it was finally held this week.

The weather was perfect, the city was looking’ good for the hundreds of illustrators that came to town. We didn’t manage to get to any of the workshops that occurred on previous days, beyond going to the RISD Icons art show opening at the Woods-Gerry Gallery (the show is up until June 24th, so you can still catch it).

Our first full day of stuff was Friday the 15th, and it started early. The darkly chipper Masters of Ceremonies were Jennifer Daniel and Nicholas Blechman.

Gregory DiBisceglie, creative manager for Campaign Planning and Special Projects at Macy’s, showed how he tries to raise the bar of creative experiences that Macy’s offers. Why, there’s one of his special projects now… art created by Chris Buzelli for Macy’s Flower Show.

Here’s the art powerhouse Bob Staake, with a page from one of his children’s books. He started off working in a well-regarded cartoony style, but has since morphed into more graphic looks. He says that since art is always subservient to something else, he likes to shake up his style depending on the need. He also like to surprise an art director with unique takes.

My favorite point he made was that art directors come to you because you’re a thinker. So true. Style and execution is less important than concept, so long as the art gets your point across effectively. I find this very true in product design, as well.

Christopher S. Neal, Josh Cochran, and Sam Weber came to talk about the importance of community and collaboration, as learned in the Pencil Factory studio space in Brooklyn. They not only collaborate with each other, but with lots of varied clients.

The importance of collaboration was a theme that kept popping up throughout the conference. Apparently sequestering oneself up in a studio all alone with no input is not the best way to achieve good art, or to get anything to happen with your art. Huh… go figure!

Here are the folks from the Children’s Book panel: Cecily Kaiser (Abrams), Chad Beckerman (Abrams), and Elizabeth Parisi (Scholastic), with Rachael Cole (Schwartz & Wade/Random House) as

This just in from Jez Burrows and friends:

A limited set of prints by five designers, illustrators, and artists, inspired by—and for the benefit of—WNYC’s Radiolab. Limited to an edition of just 100, In Radiolab We Trust is a set of five B5 two-colour Gocco prints, packaged in specially produced spot-colour wrapping paper. All proceeds after printing costs will go to Radiolab. (via In Radiolab We Trust)

Get ‘em while they’re hot! I really dig this one by Richard Perez! 

Attention all type fans: Brooklyn based designer and Grain Edit favorite, Jessica Hische has some new prints for sale at her shop! Taken from the first six sets of the Daily Drop Cap project, these individual letterpress prints display the various lettering styles we’ve come to love.

For the true collectors out there, Jessica is offering special sets of all 26 letters of the alphabet…plus a CAKE! Yes, it’s true — a cake! Check out the entire collection at her shop and be sure to keep up to date with her Daily Drop Cap series.

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Like what you see? You may also like Lubalin Now Exhibition at the Cooper Union.

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LetterCult has posted a round-up of custom lettering examples that make up “the best of the first half of 2009″.

Here’s Jessica Hische:

Esther Aarts:

Sergey Shaprio:

(via Kottke)