Aardman Animations was founded in 1972 by David Sproxton and Peter Lord.

They met at school and began their animating partnership in their spare time, using a 16mm camera belonging to David’s father. They were asked to produce something for the show 'Vision On' and made a short piece using cell animation featuring a nerdish Superman character, called Aardman.This film was bought by the BBC and thus in 1972 Aardman Animations was founded. Upon leaving their respective Northern universities the two set up in Bristol, the home of 'Vision On'.

The legendary clay character Morph made his first appearance in 1976, in Take Hart, the follow up series to Vision On, and his popularity led to the BBC commissioning a 26 part five minute series, ‘The Amazing Adventures of Morph’ which was screened in 1981.

Peter and David had always thought there was an adult audience for animated films, and in 1978 made two short films using real-life soundtracks, for BBC Bristol under the guidance of Colin Thomas. Although these two films (‘Down and Out’ and ‘Confessions of a Foyer Girl’) were disregarded by the BBC they were seen a couple of years later by Jeremy Isaacs who was creating the shape of the newly formed Channel Four.

This led directly to the commissioning of five similarly constructed films (‘Conversation Pieces’) and later to the ‘Lip Sync’ series featuring the Oscar® winning ‘Creature Comforts’. These films demonstrated how real people could be characterised with insight, humour, and sensitivity.

These films received a very good audience and led directly to offers to produce television commercials and later pop-promos, including the seminal video to Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’. Many awards were won by Aardman during this period for its commercials, especially for the series inspired by Nick Park’s ‘Creature Comforts’ for the Electricity Association.

Aardman Animations has received seven Oscar® nominations, most recently in 2000 for Humdrum, they have won three times (Creature Comforts, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave) and is now recognised as the world’s leading model animation studio. It houses the talents of many young directors producing animated television series, short films and TV commercials.
 
In 1998 Aardman made a further expansion and acquired new studio premises on the outskirts of Bristol. Here the first of a series of feature films is in the final stages of production and scheduled for release in Summer 2000. The film is called Chicken Run and is co-directed by Nick Park and Peter Lord.

Alongside its production work Aardman has a busy rights and licensing department responsible for managing the character brands it creates. In addition to the well loved characters created by the studio (Morph, Creature Comforts and Wallace and Gromit) there are many new characters emerging including Rex the Runt and Angry Kid.

Imagination, innovation and integrity are at the heart of Aardman’s work, permeating all aspects of the company’s operation, not just film-making.