Showing Your Colours with Aardman

Recently, Bristol WORKS partnered with Oscar-award winning, Bristol-based animation studio, Aardman to delivery a workshop at Oasis Brightstowe to explore design, model-making, and Pride. We did this alongside investigating the different jobs, roles and careers one could pursue in animation; from model maker to freelancer to Head of Equalities, Diversity and Inclusion.

Aardman are active supporters of Pride in Bristol. They can be seen taking part in the march through the town centre and providing activities for families as part of wider Pride celebrations. Aardman have used their design skills to support Pride in Bristol, with their ‘Love is Love’ design and ‘Show Your Colours’.

Inspired by the Show Your Colours slogan, we explored the history of several LGBTQIA+ Pride flags with Oasis Brightstowe’s LGBTQIA+ Club and delved deeper into the meanings behind the colours chosen for each flag. Armed with this knowledge, the students designed their own flags and banners to represent what Pride means to them and why it is still important today. Aardman were able to help and guide the students with their design expertise to produce some wonderful results.

But that’s not all.

Aardman are famous for their clay-mation characters and we were joined by Morph, who was a huge hit with nostalgic staff and curious students alike. The students were able to get a good look at Morph to see how he was put together before creating their own Claymation characters. To help inspire these creations, students found out about some important LGBTQIA+ icons and activists, several of whom lived in Bristol.

The students all told us how much they enjoyed this workshop, with several saying how learning about LGBTQ history was really important and others being very interested in the various careers they could pursue in animation. One student remarked on how important representation is, and how important it is to see that companies they might want to work for are inclusive and support the community.