Treasured Projects with Aardman's Gavin Strange

Inspired by the mighty Darren Dubicki, fellow director and designer at Aardman, Gavin Strange wanted to throw together a ‘sketchbook reel’. Similarly to Darren, Strange loves creating things in all types of mediums, and the reel below is a snippet of that. His work always starts as a static image: "Sometimes it stays that way if it’s a piece of graphic design or an illustration, other times it’s a jumping off point, a mood image or style frame becomes the building block of a moving image piece of work."

The short 90-second edit features a bit of everything – photography, illustration, graphic design, characters and even music. Strange made the beat himself as he wanted the whole thing to be wholeheartedly "me". There reel includes a vocal sample of his three-year-old son saying ‘Jam… Factory’, which is the alter ego Strange uses to put out all of these different creations.

"I have also been in love with a wide variety of styles, from moody monochromatic graphics to full-on eye popping neon characters. My sketchbook reel is a catalogue of work produced at work, out of work and at any hour in the day I can squeeze a bit of creativity out of!", Strange says. "Sometimes projects at Aardman are big affairs, with large numbers of hyper-talented individuals all working their magic. I love this process, there’s no better place to be than surrounded by clever folk, all working towards a common goal. On the other side of the spectrum, I equally love the self-contained solo ventures of making something on your own, and this reel is a big reflection of that."

Grab a cuppa, make it a quick one and enjoy 90 seconds of stuff for your eyeballs!