PrintingNews.com

When a smiling Democratic donkey is poised to shake hands with a happy Republican elephant, odds are you’re witnessing a high-stakes card game. A new deck illustrated by 52 students from four art schools commemorating the Illustration Conference (ICON5) increases those odds. The reason: the five of clubs carries an illustration by Jamie Stroud, a May 2008 graduate of the Master of Art in Illustration program at the Fashion Institute of Technology, showing the two party symbols about to engage in a forelimb grip.

As a top-tier “Partner Sponsor” of ICON5, held July 2 - 5 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, Xerox Corporation worked in partnership with ICON5 to produce the deck of cards as a commemorative gift for the more than 400 illustrators who attended. ICON5 organizers arranged for top students from three New York design schools — the Fashion Institute of Technology, Parsons The New School for Design and the School of Visual Arts — and the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, to contribute their original illustrations and designs.

“As illustrators, we don’t go to an office every day, so ICON5 is a great opportunity to be around people who do what we do, to talk about trends and issues and to get re-inspired,” said Whitney Sherman, president of ICON5 and chair of the Illustration Department, Maryland Institute College of Art. “It’s important for ICON5 to use projects like the deck of cards to engage our future attendees. And for the students, it’s a great opportunity to get exposure to a few hundred of the world’s top illustrators, designers and others who can influence their careers."

She added: “From an academic perspective, the project fits well with contemporary educational models of blending creativity and professional development. It gave students creative freedom and realistic deadlines.”

To develop the cards, each school was assigned one suit — clubs (FIT), diamonds (MICA), hearts (Parsons) and spades (SVA) — and the school’s chairpersons or deans overseeing illustration programs selected 13 students to provide card designs.