Alun Cocks

Today Alun Cocks came in to speak to us about his agency, Dust that he runs along side Patrick Walker and Pamela Bowden. They all met at university in leeds and Alun even attended Stockport College. He showed us a great range of work, alot of it with careful consideration to printing material, texture and adding a really hand crafted style to it. His first piece he showed us was largely made of mark making, something we had all worked with in first year and added a real different approach to the brief. During his talk, although his quick flicking from slide to previous slides was abit sporadic his content was great, he talked largely about how doing one good project leads to a job that leads to better jobs. This echoing what Stuart and Chris from Thoughtful had said a week earlier in their talk.

What was really good at the end of the lecture was we were able to go an have a look through most of the pieces that he had included in his slide show. And the photographs gave them no justice as the quality and precision of the books and pieces he had done were excellent. And to be able to feel them made me really get to grips with his explanation of the briefs.

Aswell as operating their own studio Dust collaborate with Mick Marston to form Fine & Dandy which is a side project heavily based around pure illustration. Fine & Dandy are part of CIA (Central Illustration Agency) which represents over 45 different illustrative artists/outfits.

Below is a piece by Fine & Dandy that really stuck in my mind, i love the sense of working towards that goal of being paid to do something you would give an arm and a leg to do anyway.