"Don't wait to be asked," Aardman's Gavin Strange on how to be more creative

It's always a pleasure seeing Aardman's Gavin Strange on stage, and D&AD Festival was no different. Gavin closed the festival with an optimistic and high-energy talk that implored the audience to "just tinker, just play, just experiment".

Elsewhere at D&AD, inspiration was abundant. There was a deep dive into the making of The New York Times Magazine covers, an exploration of creative mistakes from Baxter & Bailey and a journey through sonic branding from MassiveMusic. And we've got more coverage to come, too.

But for now, here are some of the key takeaways from Gavin's talk.

01. Embrace mistakes

"Whether it's pixels or plasticine, it's irrelevant," said Gavin. "I want mistakes, I want growth, I want to put in the time and the effort and the energy to learn to be bad at it, to be slightly less bad at it, to move forwards and go on."

Gavin said how he can do all that within the walls of Aardman, where he works as a director and designer. He also works under the moniker of Jam Factory, which is the umbrella term under which he works on his many, many side projects.

02. Play around with low-fi and hi-fi

Gavin gave several examples of both low and high-tech projects he's worked on, including an ident for BBC Two made of green slime, a stop-motion Wallace and Gromit made for iPhone and projected onto Battersea Power Station and a stop-frame animation for Greenpeace.

"We bough every pot of slime it was possible to buy from The Works in Bristol with magnetically supported eyeballs underneath and a thousand frames a second camera," he said, talking about his work for BBC Two. "So sometimes it's low-fi, sometimes it's hi-fi."

03. Find the joy

"You never really know what project's going to come through your door, you never know where things are going to take you," said Gavin. "But lean into every opportunity – and sometimes that is making the logo bigger for the client. Sometimes that's the job and that's the job for the week and that's absolutely fine.

"We are in the business of commercial creativity... there is a transaction that has to happen and otherwise we'd all be fine artists and no one would give us any feedback and we'd just do what we liked, but that's not the business we're in.

"The excitement and the charm is trying to find the joy and the creativity and the positivity and the fun in sometimes the most menial task because sometimes you pay your dues and you might make the logo bigger a thousand times", and then you get to do the cool stuff, said Gavin.

"You never know what's around the door. You've absolutely got to embrace everything you can as positively as you can."

04. Grab hold of opportunities

"Never in a million years would my English teacher have said I'd be a published author," said Gavin, showing off his Do Fly book proudly.

That stuff just happens through making stuff, doing stuff, falling into talks when I was too scared to speak in front of everyone. "I felt so physically sick in the first talk I ever gave, which was actually at an Apple Store," Gavin recalled.

"But then the more you do something, the more you realise that in the world of creativity, no one knows you and your work more than you. So you can speak with authority and passion."

05. Tell the world about your work

"You could be the greatest creative on the planet, but if no one one the planet knows, how will you ever progress?" said Gavin.

"Have your own portfolio, make it weird, make it wonderful." Gavin gave the example of his portfolio, which he said doesn't actually load on any other device apart from on desktop as it's so full of videos.

"Do it the way that you want to do it," he said. "Represent yourself."

06. Make stuff for you

"I just like making stuff," said Gavin, showing the audience an array of fun and innovative side projects. "I make absolutely everything that no one asks for. No one wants this stuff. No one's commissioning it. No one wants to see it," he said, though the audience reaction suggested otherwise.

"I want to see it. I want it to exist. The power that we have to create something from nothing is really special. To create something from nothing – make mistakes, go wrong and take a whole different direction."

Later on he talked about being productive. "Don't wait to be asked," he said. "It's absolutely no one's responsibility to make sure you're creatively satisfied... It's up to you. You can make it happen."