I started out in the creative industry as a uni graduate with a portfolio of ideas and a student D&AD award. Moving from my home town of Blackpool to London, I showcased my student work at the ‘D&AD new blood’ exhibition. Work placements followed and many months later I landed my first job as a Junior Art Director. I went on to work in some top global agencies on big brand clients across london, and later Leeds, which spanned for almost 20 years.
Then came the turning point for me. After working through my pregnancies and working long hours on returning from Maternity leave, my heart decided that I missed our babies too much. It was at a time pre-covid so the flexibility of working from home wasn’t common place or made available to me at the time. So I decided to take a career break to raise our two young children, and it was the best thing I ever did!
A few years later when our children started school, the time felt right to began searching for an outlet for my creativity once more. I had been out of the industry for a while, so it was both exciting and quite daunting when I made the decision to return. It was at this time, that I discovered OMB, and I’m so glad I did!
Taking part in OMB’s daily briefs got me back into thinking creatively once again. It was truly uplifting to re-ignite that spark of generating ideas. It was just the challenge I needed! It is a lot of fun and provides so much inspiration and the opportunity to knowledge share.
The OMB community of creatives (aka Ombles) are really welcoming. To me it felt like I was a part of a creative department in an agency again, only online, and with OMB’s 40k+ followers it was much bigger! Each day that I participated in a brief I looked forward to seeing all the varied creative interpretations.
If I was just doing spec work on my own at home it would not be as inspiring. Ombles are happy to collaborate and offer friendly constructive advice. It’s also more motivating. Just like going to the gym is easier if you do it with a friend. Coming up with concepts can be more fun too if you have someone to bounce ideas off. Anyone can enter, you can submit hand drawn ideas (scamps) or mac visuals. However you choose to convey your ‘One Minute’ ideas, all concepts are always welcomed.
Seeing the positive feedback on my ideas from both the OMBLES and Nick and Maeve at OMB, gave me the confidence that I could still do it! There’s never any judgement just encouragement. Which gets rid of the fear of putting yourself back out there, especially after having had a career break like me. I have showcased my ideas generated from OMB briefs with my portfolio at recent interviews and it has opened doors to securing new freelance work for me.
I think participating in daily OMB briefs is the fastest way to excel your lateral thinking and build up a portfolio of ideas. Whether you have an existing portfolio or not, there is always room to update and improve! Which I believe is essential to stay fresh.
I have been participating in OMB briefs for approaching one year now. In that time I have submitted close to 500 ideas, with over 100 selected as daily brief winners. You could say I’m a little bit addicted! Many more of my other entries have been shortlisted in the competitions briefs and some have gone on to win. To date I have won 5 competition briefs. Winning prize money, merchandise goodies and the even the accolade of having my work go live in the real world!
Here are my OMB prize winning entries:
1st Prize - ‘The Hunger Project’
I designed a T-shirt for World Food Day 2023 that captured The Hunger Project UK’s vision of a world without hunger. My winning design went on to be sold in their online shop alongside renown Designers including Anthony Burrill.
You can shop my design here: https://thehungerprojectshop.co.uk/product/michelle-pugh-one-minute-brief-t-shirt/…/
My concept was all about empowering people with the tools to help feed themselves. You can read more about the work ‘The Hunger Project UK’ do here https://thehungerproject.org.uk I’m extremely proud of this work and humbled to be helping end world hunger.
Joint 1st place - for ‘Missing People’.
Around 170,000 people are reported missing each year in the UK. In response ‘Missing People’ launched a ‘Digital Search Heroes’ campaign asking members of the public to share missing appeals and keep an eye out in their area. My concept supported this initiative. I formatted my winning outdoor ad designs to Facebook social media format, they then went live as organic and paid for ads. The results of these were 118,142 total impressions across Facebook and Twitter, with 2,516 total link clicks (linking to the Digital Search Heroes sign up page) generating a lot of traffic to their site and uptake in the initiative.
3rd Place - The Rainforest Alliance.
The brief was a rallying call for people to unite to create a world where people and nature thrive in harmony. For individuals, this includes taking small daily actions like sharing this message, buying products with the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal, and demanding better from companies and governments. The call-to-action is a simple, yet powerful affirmation: ‘We’re all in’.
My concept used the brand’s ‘treefrog’ and other rainforest animals with their hands, paws, or claws up in the air to symbolise them opting in. With the CTA to put your hand up too if you’re in. I also submitted a digital adshel idea that used camera/motion sensors to count people who put their hands up ‘to opt in’. Multiple adshels at various sites could then feed the total score to an online hub. A visual way to show the scale of engagement. I was awarded a cash prize and Rainforest Alliance goodies!
Joint 3rd Place - TaskRabbit.
The brand’s fun memorable creative campaign features lyrical puns to promote their range of trade services, from plumbers and electricians to painters and gardeners to name a few. So this brief was to create posters to be in keeping with the existing campaign, but using Manchester music artists! I wrote a headline that referenced Simply Red to promote the gardening services available on the TaskRabbit platform. As well as receiving a cash prize, my idea is now up on a huge billboard and adshels in Manchester!
1st place - fix the X glitch.
Nick asked the OMBLES for their help to create posters to encourage @elonmusk, @support & @X to take action and fix the X glitch that has been stopping OMB from welcoming new OMBLES into the community. My winning concept bagged me a cash prize. Along with the hundreds of other Ombles that rose to the challenge, we helped to generate awareness of the problem. However despite our joint efforts, the algorithm is yet still to be fixed! Luckily though the community is so supportive that collectively if we see a new Omble’s idea hasn’t been reposted (due to X glitch in notifications) we alert the team who get on it straight away. That’s another benefit to OMB, the team who run the community are as efficient as they are supportive and welcoming.
It’s not all about entering the competition briefs and winning prizes though. Entering OMB daily has its own rewards. It’s a brain workout, and helps you create better more creative communications. Below are a selection of my favourites ideas from OMB’s daily briefs. Lots of concepts from fruit juice to anti cyber bullying, and whale and dolphin conservation!
There are so many varied briefs to take part in, often for charities, ethical and eco-conscious brands, or social change messaging which feels really good to work on.
OMB has reminded me how much I love being creative and that in itself is the biggest reward of all. I would highly recommend the OMB experience to everyone!
See Michelle’s OMB entries on X at: @mpugh_creative
See below for a few more of Michelle’s OMB entries and view her portfolio at: https://mpughcreative.wixsite.com/portfolio
