Creativity plays a vital role in enhancing students' performance in art and design education. The impact of motivation on education is a vital aspect that educators must take into account to promote the creativity of students. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effect of students' motivation on their creative activities in Russian art and design education, and simultaneously validate the self-developed Motivation for Creativity Questionnaire (MCQ). This study involved 193 Russian undergraduate students from Kazan Federal (Volga Region) University. The results from EFAs and construct validity measures stated that the developed questionnaire could reliably measure the factors of students' motivation and creativity in Russian art and design education. The intrinsic motivation had a positive significant impact on students' creative performance of divergent thinking, originality of ideas, persistent attitude, and intellectual risk-taking. Achievement motivation also had significant and positive effects on students' creativity: divergent thinking, originality of ideas, persistent attitude, and intellectual risk-taking. This study suggests that educators in Russian art and design education can promote students' creative performance by nurturing both intrinsic and achievement motivations, focusing on areas such as divergent thinking, originality of ideas, persistent attitude, and intellectual risk-taking.