Gavin Strange, Director and Designer at Aardman Animations, spoke about finding the time (and motivation) for creativity at last month's Digital Gaggle conference.

It was pretty clear from Gavin’s Digital Gaggle talk that he loves what he does and, to be honest, you’d be hard pressed not to feel inspired after watching his talk - I was left with enough motivational quotes to poster my house!

Gavin served us the reminder that we all sometimes need: that we can be our authentic selves and aspire to do what we dream of. Here are a few of my favourite takeaways from his talk:

Takeaway 1: Don’t wait to be asked - do it because no one asked you to

Gavin used two great video game examples to demonstrate how sometimes things should be created 'just because'.

Untitled Goose Game (a game where you play as a goose and go around annoying people. Sounds fun, right?) and Cuphead (a game which is entirely hand drawn - 50,000 frames in case you were wondering!) are both examples of video games which literally no-one ever asked for but they now exist and Gavin is all for it.

The lesson when it comes to being creative? Do it because no one asked you to. 

Just one example of the types of posters I'll be decorating my house with.

Takeaway 2: Cling to optimism - a lot of things are awful

Sometimes, it can feel like we're all surrounded by negativity, be it on social media or in the news, so the importance of optimism is clear. Whilst we do need to remain realistic in certain situations, Gavin’s advice is to "be naïve enough to break through the realism but keep an element of being realistic".

Essentially, feel free to dream but stay somewhat grounded. 

Takeaway 3: Do the things that give you purpose  

"Do stuff to take you on a journey." If you’re concerned about where to start, or what to do next, just scale everything down and think about your next step. If you’re worrying about what others might think, don't! They’re all busy with their own lives as well so, in reality, they probably don’t care!

You might find yourself asking: Where am I going? What am I going to do? Try instead replacing it with: ‘What is my next step?’ Everything will feel a little easier to manage.