What the flip is a JamFactory?
My name is Gavin Strange and I'm a 26-years-young manchild from Leicester but now living in beautiful Bristol. I work as the Senior Online Designer at Aardman Animations by day, and by night I indulge in my other graphical obsessions, going under the name 'JamFactory'.
I began my career in the wonderful world of web & graphics back in 2000 when I got a job, fresh out of college, at a design agency in Leicester named Christon Davies. There I was schooled in the way of the web, whilst setting up my own little website in my own time, to test out my newly-learnt skills.
That website was jam-factory.com and stayed as my portfolio site throughout my time at the design agency, until 4 years later I decided to be brave and go it alone in the freelance world.
I became 'JamFactory' full-time and for the next 3 years I took on every graphical task I could - from websites to graphic design, illustration to photography. You name it, I got involved.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
In 2008, I was lucky enough to be offered the position of Senior Online Designer at the illustrious Aardman Animations, after a period of freelancing for them on Channel 4 project 4mations.
I hastily accepted and have been doing that since earlier this year, with a whole heap of fun JamFactory projects to keep me out of mischief in the evenings.
I also started and am part of the Xynthetic family. The Xyn is a creative collective of artists, designers, skaters, photographers & film makers, all collaborating on various projects and exhibitions.
The family consists of M4KINOV, Mr Jago, Klingatron, WASTE, Richt, Sums, Danny Wainwright, Pone, 45RPM, China Mike, WheatFree, Sam Taylor, Eric Thomas, Darryl Reid, Lee Page, Wilko, Sarah Laughton, ED209 & myself
I'm very lucky to have my very own vinyl toy. This is a dream come true for me, and it was the awesome Mr Andy Woo @ Crazy label who gave me the opportunity to turn one of my creations into series of toys!
They're called 'Droplets' and they were released in May 2008, in a series of 5 different colourways. This is only the beginning of my adventure in the vinyl world, keep your eyes and ears peeled for more in the future...
I've been very fortunate in that very nice people at various establishments have been kind enough to cover me and my work.
I'm lucky enough to have been featured in Computer Arts, Munch, Venue and Computer Arts Projects magazine aswell as receiving my very own featured profile in the 'Pro' section of the Apple Computers website back in July 2007!
To sum it up, I'm a very lucky man, that gets to make a living doing what I love - for that I'm eternally grateful.
