For over sixteen years, Gavin has been part of the creative magic at Aardman, the legendary studio known for bringing stories to life with imagination and heart. From playful Christmas ads to the poignant Turtle Journey for Greenpeace, his work reflects a rare blend of energy, fun, and storytelling. Whether it’s a title sequence, a short film, or something entirely different, there’s always a sense of joy and adventure at the core.
But Gavin’s creativity doesn’t stop when the workday ends. By night, he steps into the world of Jamfactory, his personal playground for passion projects spanning filmmaking, illustration, music, and photography. And when he’s not making things, he’s sharing his journey — speaking to audiences from Mexico to Munich, inspiring others to embrace creativity with the same infectious enthusiasm.
Now almost a decade old but still inspiring as ever, his insights were distilled into Do Fly — a book that grew from his talk at the Do Lectures. So, let’s take a moment to dive into the creative world of Gavin Strange, where passion and play collide.
How do you balance your time between Aardman, being a dad, and running JamFactory?
I guess there’s no one specific answer – doing the balance like every parent does; based on necessity! My work at Aardman has set hours so that timeline is pretty well defined, fatherhood is every moment I’m not at work, so the Jamfactory stuff is any time that’s left over from those two really!
I like the balance changing and have become quite comfy in treating each week as it comes and being fluid & flexible with the ‘spare’ time I have for passion projects. It also depends how bonkers busy my Aardman schedule is really. For example, right now, I’m lucky enough to be directing a really fun but quite complex project that’s all encompassing, so in my passion project time I’m mainly focused on smaller, simpler projects that arte creatively fulfilling rather than trying to fit a specific purpose such as filling gaps on my portfolio or trying to build a new skillset.
I try and be as kind to myself as possible to just take each day or each week as it comes and be reactive in where my attention should be. Then, as we all know, all it takes is one poorly little one or a poorly-timed meltdown to scupper any plans that you have anyway, so I feel quite well versed in the rhythm of being a creative parent now and I enjoy the challenge!
Has becoming a parent changed how you view design or influenced your creative process?
I don’t know if it’s changed how I view design as I already had quite a childlike wonder about the world of creativity and I am still just a (slightly) bigger kid, but it’s definitely influenced my creative process. Even thinking about materials – I love it when the kids get out the big chunky crayons or pencils, just enjoying mucking about with stickers or googly eyes is a great way to free yourself up from the seriousness of a creative career with clients and deadlines!
It’s made me excited to share design and creativity with my kids too, our bookcase downstairs doesn’t have many novels, it’s all art books and animation making-of’s, so I’m constantly trying to push all that stuff on them!
Do your kids ever join you at work or contribute to your design projects?
I love to show them around Aardman, the studio is full of characters and puppets and drawings and all sorts, and they love to come in! When my son was first born we lived a lot closer to the studio so my wife and my son visited a lot, but just before the pandemic we moved a bit further out, and then COVID hit, then my daughter was born, so since the family doesn’t visit the studio as often as we used to which is a shame, because they do love it!
I love sneaking my kids names into work things too… Sully’s name is hidden in a starry constellation graphic in the Shaun the Sheep Farmageddon title sequence and both kids names and birthdays are hidden in an upcoming animation I can’t divulge yet!! It’s really fun to do that stuff, long may it continue!
I really love using the kids as inspiration though for passion projects too – I built a thing called a ‘Pinplo’ last year; it’s a Duplo-brick Nintendo-switch-powered virtual pinball machine! The original idea was because I thought the kids would love to play with it… but in reality it’s pretty much just for me, I just nicked a bit of the kids Duplo to start it off! They do enjoy it, but not nearly as much as I do.
My kids feature a lot in my creative talks to, I love to use them as creative motivators and being a parent is a big part of who I am, so thats super relevant to my own creative story. I get a kick out of showing their pictures on-stage or a passion project inspired by them!
And just photography too – I love shooting photos so the kids are pretty much the majority of my subjects, as I love documenting their little lives on film, it’s really special!
How do you think growing up in a creative household affects your children’s outlook or interests?
That’s an interesting one, I’m hoping it lets our kids get stuck in and see that they can create anything they want to. There’s no hidden secret or special trick to be able to make something – anyone can do it, you just have to give it a go! I hope that it becomes a big part of their outlook as growing up. It never really dawned on me that I could give things a shot too, I put things off thinking I wouldn’t be very good so I didn’t often try, it wasn’t until I was a young adult that it really clicked into place that I was denying myself creative joy by not giving it a shot.
I hope that with my wife and me both being creative, it will be second nature to just start making stuff and no worrying about the outcome or how good or bad it is! The kids both love doing stop-frame animation on the iPad or crafting characters out of found objects, so it’ll be lovely to continue to encourage that spirit.
That’s the thing though isn’t it, all kids are inherently creative and aren’t really inhibited by much, I think it’s about doing everything we can to protect that state of creative freedom and not let it be educated out of them!
You’ve worked on amazing projects at Aardman. What has been your favourite so far, and why?
Aw I’ve been so lucky to work on different projects at Aardman, especially as I joined there back in 2008 as a Senior Designer but became fortunate enough to progress to becoming a Director, so I’m super lucky to work across a few different mediums.
The Gromit Unleashed project back in 2013 was really special – 80 five-foot tall Gromit statues, each designed and painted by a different artist, which was then auctioned off to raise money for the wonderful Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal charity, which raises money for sick children and their families at the Bristol Childrens Hospital. It was such a beautiful thing to be involved in, using character, design & creativity to raise money for an incredible cause. It ended up raising £2.3 million pounds the night of the auction and meant that many pieces of specialist equipment could be purchased for the Childrens Hospital.
I was lucky enough to meet some of the kids who made use of those facilities after the success of the auction and I was blown away by their positivity and their resilience. They weren’t phased at all by being in the hospital, they were just kids being kids, despite the heavy circumstances, it was incredibly inspiring! There’s since been a second Gromit Unleashed trail and a Shaun the Sheep one too, each raising more money for the hospital and I’m super proud to have been a part of those too!
Another favourite project, one very close to my heart was a short film I had the pleasure of directing called ‘Turtle Journey’, a stop-frame film commissioned by Greenpeace, released in 2020. The film was using animation to tell the plight of the world’s oceans as part of their ‘Protect the Oceans’ campaign, where they were putting pressure on the world’s governments to create “30 by 30” – 30% of the world’s oceans as designated protected sanctuaries by the year 2030. It was such an amazing project to be a part of because every element of it was special – from being able to tell a personal story of family loss as a metaphor for habitat loss to directing incredible voice talent like Olivia Colman and Helen Mirren. Ultimately, it was so special to be a part of a project that’s sole aim was connecting with people and motivating them to take action on an important environmental issue, all via the power of animation. That was really special.
You often talk about passion projects. How do you show your kids the importance of pursuing their interests?
I think we just try and actively encourage the interests they have but without pushing it too much. Our kids really love drawing and playing video games and building Lego and things like that, they’re not enrolled in tonnes of clubs or anything and right now, at this age, that’s absolutely fine. I know I didn’t really branch out too much with interests when I was a kid, It wasn’t until I was a young adult I wanted to pursue as many interests as possible. Right now I think we’re just trying to be receptive to any interests they do have and offer up a little ‘no pressure’ serving suggestion should they want to dive into something a bit deeper, but also absolutely no worries if they just don’t want to pursue anything further.
What role does Bristol’s artistic community play in your work and family life?
I absolutely LOVE calling Bristol my home. It’s not one single thing that Bristol does, it’s the combined sum of everything it offers; music, art, graffiti, skateboarding, history, architecture, diversity, design, animation, variety and more.
Right now we’re in that time of our lives where our community is pretty small – we’re mainly focused on our young family and our network of wider family and friends, but in that pre-kids life my wife and me were both part of Bristol’s artistic community in that we surrounded ourselves with our peers, soaking up inspiration from what fellow artists and creatives were doing around us. That excitement and pride of being in a creative city now feeds into our current life with our kids, wanting to pass on some pride and excitement to them!
My work at Aardman is also really special too, being surrounded by so many talented, interesting, creative people that is a big motivator to me for wanting to be better. Aardman is very proudly a Bristolian place too; that’s a big part of its DNA. It’s made things that have connected with people all over the world, but created by a bunch of people in some warehouses in the Southwest of England.
What do you think are the best tools or environments for nurturing a child’s creativity today?
I think just by showing and sharing creative ‘things’ then you’re off to a great start. Just showing the kids by taking an active interest in the joy of creativity will be that spark, I guess, I hope! There’s no way to force creativity on them, you’ve just got to sew lots of little seeds and see if any of them start to grow.
“For us we just like to lead by example, and to encourage and celebrate their own creative endeavours, in whatever form they take! Kids are just so inherently creative anyways that it doesn’t feel like much to set them on a good path.”
Are there any places, books, films, or games that have had a big impact on your kids?
Oh man, I love making lists! Yes indeed, films and games are a big part of our family life, and the things we enjoy are really steered by us, always wanting the kids to enjoy things of quality. I cannot wait until my kids are older so I can inflict ‘AKIRA’ on them, the greatest piece of animation of all time!
Until then, here’s some of the things we love as a family and have a big impact on our kids (and us!):
TV: Basically… Bluey, Bluey, Bluey and Bluey!! And of course Hey Duggee, Oggy Oggy, Puffin Rock, Cory Carson.
Film: Into the Spiderverse, WALL-E, Wallace & Gromit, Encanto, Nimona, Sing, How to train your dragon, Moana, Klaus, Paddington, Trolls, The Monkey King, Mitchells vs The Machines and basically anything by Pixar! We have family movie night every Friday, so we’re always on the lookout for a great new animated film.
Games: Astrobot, Hohokum, A Short Hike, What the Golf, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Everything, Mario Kart, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Unravel, Good Job. The kids have always played games since a young age as I love games too, and it’s been really nice finding them suitable, appropriate but fun games for them to play.
Has there been a parenting moment that made you rethink your creative approach?
Like all of parenting, it’s ever-shifting and made up of millions and millions of moments. Nothing stands out as a single moment itself, more the realisation that it won’t stay the same for very long – the kids’ personalities and routines will change frequently and I have to change my creative approach to match them. That’s a nice feeling; it’s humbling to remember what matters. I’ll now always be a parent first and a creative second.
How do you see your design practice evolving, and what impact do you hope it will have on future creative kids?
Yeah I do, I think I’ll continue to change my practice as my kids get older. Hopefully, I can integrate them more and involve them in greater ways in what I do. They don’t really understand exactly what it is that I do, but as I get older, I hope they look up to their mum and dad as creative humans who make things because they really care about it.
What advice would you give to creative professionals who are about to become parents?
Enjoy it! It’s absolutely going to throw you for a loop, but in the best way. It’ll be mad, frantic, chaotic, but so utterly satisfying to be a parent and a creative. You’ll be forced to engage totally different parts of your brain, all at the same time. It’ll make you so hyper-focused on the time you do have to be creative whilst simultaneously making you re-evaluate your priorities and focus on what’s important. It’ll be challenging and frustrating, fantastic and awe-inspiring. In short, it will be everything.
