The MUSE Creative Awards is a part of the MUSE Awards Program, which was created by the International Awards Associate (IAA) in 2015. IAA’s inception was based on a mission to honor, promote and encourage creativity by providing a new standard of excellence for evaluating media design production and distribution. IAA’s mission has largely shaped MUSE Creative Awards’ goals.
At its core, MUSE Creative Awards is an international competition for creative professionals who inspire others to greater heights. With their concepts, ideas or designs, these creatives light a fire in others to strive further, thus becoming a muse.
2023 MUSE Theme
What have you left unexpressed?
Within the expanse of one’s mind, that which is unexplored is far greater than what has been materialized. In every decision we make within every instance available to us, our thoughts stand a chance to come to life. Now, what if your every conscious decision is dedicated towards expressing your untapped creativity?
The MUSE Awards honors those who are unbridled in their expression; who create with every fibre of their being. They raise the bar and define the path forward, creating a benchmark for all to follow after.
MUSE is where those who break through the mundane flock to; for those who speak with their works despite the adversity and uncertainty. The MUSE Awards honors you and your uninhibited expressions, through which you create waves of influence in the world today.
Unleash yourself, speak your mind through your craft, and be crowned a MUSE.
With up to 450+ categories in diverse fields and disciplines, the MUSE Creative Awards caters to an extremely wide range of creatives, of differing levels.
Advertising
Corporate Identity
Outdoor Advertising
Publication
Typography
App
Audio
Experiential & Immersive
Social Media
Video
Website
Branded Content
Integrated Marketing
Marketing & Promotional
Strategic Program
Best Agency Awards (NEW)
Corporate Social Responsibility
Event
Student Submission
The MUSE Awards is judged by members of the IAA Judging Council, a group of leading industry professionals.
Showcase your brilliant projects and capture the attention of our esteemed panel of judges today!
United States
Chuck McBride
Founder/CCO, Cutwater
Chuck founded Cutwater in 2007 with Omnicom. Under his leadership, Cutwater developed iconic work for Ray-Ban, Levi Strauss, American Giant, Ariat, Jeep, LensCrafters, and BNP Paribas.
In 2011, the partners took the agency independent. Prior, Chuck was the Creative Director of North America at TBWAChiat Day, where, alongside Lee Clow, he won Sprint, Mars, Adidas, and Agency of the Year, twice.
While running the San Francisco office, it became the most awarded agency in the world. Chuck also worked at Wieden + Kennedy running the Nike account, and at Goodby Silverstein and Partners where he worked on Isuzu and the “Got Milk?” campaign. Chuck has had the pleasure of working on both Men and Women’s sectors of the Levi Strauss brand at three different agencies.
Chuck has been nominated five times for an Emmy, and was awarded once, with more outstanding achievements at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, D&AD, One Show, Communication Arts, NY Art Directors Club, Andy’s, and Effies.
Pakistan
Fizza Shah
Creative Director, IAL Saatchi & Saatchi
Passionate about her work, Fizza is a hard-working individual who has been part of the Creative team at IAL Saatchi & Saatchi since 2014 and is now working as a Creative Director on multiple brands. She is known to bring out-of-the-box ideas to the table and has developed creative concepts for many of Pakistan's leading brands like Tapal, National Foods, Continental Biscuits, and Dalda Foods to name a few. Her campaign to reposition the classified section of Jang newspaper won a PAS Award in the year 2017 and the overall image of the newspaper got a facelift in today's digital-savvy world. She is fascinated by hot air balloons and has a large collection of unused notebooks.
Singapore
Birger Linke
Group Creative Director, DMG / Hylink
With two decades in the industry, Birger has worked on both, agency and clients' side, as a creative and marketeer for Peter Schmidt Group, Springer & Jacoby, Saatchi & Saatchi, JWT, Leo Burnett, BBDO Interone, DMG, set up TBWAVietnam, is a partner in two startups, and currently the Global Group Creative Director at MindChamps - the company leading the revolution in education.
Working across disciplines, incl. advertising, digital, and (interior) design, Birger has won more than 120 national and international awards, incl. Gold at Cannes, the first-ever D&AD for Vietnam, was named most awarded DM creative in Asia, "hottest" creative in Vietnam, and ranked in the Top 100 of “Hottest Creatives in Asia”.
Birger's “TransMariner” campaign for the Republic of Singapore Navy was ranked No.4 in the world (Won Report), his Coke "Olympic Beat" campaign garnered 400 Million views within the first month on air. He created the world's first WeChat ad for BMW, helped make Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore the most awarded direct marketing agency in the world, and TBWAVietnam the most awarded agency in the country.
Birger became a member of the advisory council of the University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City.
Birger is a member of D&AD and The Design Society. He was a judge at London International, New York Festival, Adfest, Award, Young Guns, Pinasthika, AdStars, Golden Bell, Vega Digital Awards, Chillies and Creative Circle Awards.
In his free time, Birger lectures and speaks across Asia on marketing and advertising, and works on design projects. He holds a Private Pilot License.
In true fashion, the MUSE Awards anchors its 2023 statuettes to their theme of the year, giving a tangible sense of the subjectivity of expressive intents. The statuettes are adorned with lustrous details, each speaking their own truth and exuding their unique beauty.
A trophy for those who are unbridled in their expression, the 2023 MUSE statuettes are representations on how the mind is multi-faceted in its beauty and creativity when you Unleash Yourself.
Unleash yourself, speak your mind through your craft, and be crowned a MUSE.
“ This has been a very exciting year for Communications, Ink. We are humbled to have your (our) judges our work as we have been doing these types of projects for more than 20 years. It validates both our approach and execution. ”
~ Cara McCarthy Hutchins, Founder & CEO of Communications, Ink, United States
“ Creating a memorable brand that people can connect to, relate to and remember means we have to work a little less hard to capture our audience and move them to action. Winning the MUSE Awards are an affirmation that the work we are doing is excellent and even more importantly, help create and sustain awareness of and engagement with the foundation and help us as we continually pursue and advance our mission. ”
~ Carol Borchert, Vice President of Marketing & Brand Strategy of Morris Animal Foundation, United States
“ It was an honor for a company so young to have such an important global projection, reinforcing the already spread out concept that Portuguese tech talent is among the best in the world. For us, it serves as proof that all the hard effort we put into the smallest details adds up to a result that we can be proud of, and one that others recognize and cheer us for it. ”
~ Marco Oliveira, CEO of MOXY, Portugal
“ If you look at all winning projects you can see how important MUSE is now. Some of the best creative firms around the world are represented. This award makes me believe that Angry Dog is in the right track. ”
~ Rafael Fernandes, Founder & Creative Director of Angry Dog, Brazil
“ Our whole team is really honored and humbled to have won six MUSE Awards this year. Winning MUSE Awards is especially great because these awards represent our team’s creative talents, tireless dedication and innovative visions in design, technology and science. ”
~ Kari Kivelä, Co-Founder of Oura Health, Finland
“ Awards are awesome! We are obsessed with the caliber of work we create and the clients that trust us with their marketing goals. Winning the 2019 MUSE Awards is a definite victory for our clients and the Factory Workers who toiled to bring their visions to life. Recognition of a job well done on an international stage brings exposure not only to the businesses we represent but also to the great work we’re proud to release to the world. ”
~ Christine Collins, Managing Director of Bad Penny Factory, United States
“ Winning a Platinum Award this year has been great. It is a really good indication that the work we are producing is of high quality and is also a great recognition to the amazing work the entire team is doing. ”
~ Andrew Seaton, Director of Mint Films, Australia
“ We are so very excited and proud to be recognized by such a prestigious organization! We take pride in every project we touch so it’s always nice when your peers take note of your efforts and shine a positive light in your direction. ”
~ Renard Ragsdale, Chief Delivery Officer of Ragsdale Design Group, United States
“ It is such an honor to be awarded the MUSE. It’s always great to receive recognition from our industry and our peers that we’ve done good work, but the even more exciting thing to me is to get the recognition for our client and the great things they’re allowing us to do. ”
~ Michael Wilson, Creative Director of Trekk, United States
“ It’s such an honor for the team – especially since there aren’t a lot of industry awards dedicated to storytelling. As someone who leads a copy team, this feels like a validation to keep pushing our writing and redefining branded content. ”
~ Stephanie Davila, Editorial Director of Banana Republic, United States
“ We set out to create impactful brand experiences and we're dedicated to delivering a higher creative standard, and it's amazing when our efforts are recognized and most importantly lead to our client's brand recognition and success. It's all in the experience. helium creative looks forwards to creating more MUSE Creative Award-winning work and love's how MUSE features each project on it's own mini-portfolio page. What a great asset to share with clients! ”
~ Christopher Heller, President + Creative Director at helium creative, United States
“ To have a recognition of the effort that is put into our work has delighted our team, especially because we don’t work in sectors that would usually win awards. ”
~ Trisha Palmer, Technical Director at IKM Visual Solutions, United Kingdom
“ Our team is not only extremely honored and humbled but also incredibly excited to have won three 2018 MUSE Rose Gold Awards this year. I believe these awards are a true representation of our team’s creative talents, tireless dedication, innovation vision and our desire to have our work representation alongside our award-winning creative peers. It’s moments like this that propels our team to strive to work harder and push the creative boundaries even further on our upcoming projects. We look forward to submitting in 2019. THANK YOU for the opportunity MUSE Creative Awards! ”
~ Mary Rego, Founder & CEO at The Brand Collective, United States
“ It lends validation to our company most during sales pitches. Like when your prospect asks “what sets you apart…”. I get to say “in addition to our Emmys awards – we’ve now won five international website design awards, including two MUSE Creative Awards”. ”
~ Chad Arentz, Owner & Creative Director at Jump Motion Design, United States
“ Thank you! Winning meant so much to me. It is lovely receiving some recognition and it makes me feel stronger to keep going. ”
~ Clim, Creative Director at Clim Studio, Spain
“ Awards are important, insofar as they validate our work in a way that is independent of client satisfaction—the most pragmatic of validations. Winning 2018 MUSE Creative Awards tells us that we have gone beyond the expected and created something that is worthy of wider recognition. This is very gratifying. ”
~ Lester Lim, Creative Director at Creaxis Design, Singapore
“ We could not be more thrilled to have been honored with two awards as esteemed as the MUSE Creative Awards for the second year in a row. Our team has been consistently pushing the envelope and taking bigger creative risks this past year, and to be recognized by some of the greats in our industry is so rewarding. We look forward to challenging ourselves to up the ante even further for our clients and within our organization for next year’s competition. ”
~ Adam Binder, Founder at Creative Click Media, United States
“ We believe that when you hold up a trophy, you hold aloft the aspirations of your teammates, the confidence, and trust of your clients and the dreams of the founders. That is why it gives us so much of joy and sense of achievement to be recognized and assures us that our efforts of providing nothing but the best to our clients are headed in the right direction. ”
~ Aman Roy, General Manager & Creative Director at Watermark Marketing Management, United Arab Emirates
“ This project was a true collaboration between myself and our creative team, alongside our print house Fast Proof Press. Receiving an award for this piece is a testament for me to how important collaboration is in the creative industries and what is possible when we support each other and work as one. ”
~ Claudio Kirac, Creative Director & Co-Founder at Art-Work Agency, Australia
“ Winning the 2018 MUSE Creative Awards is a confirmation for our entire team that placing a great importance to interesting design, fluent and perfectly thought-out movement and showing history in an unconventional way, make sense and is appreciated by the viewers. We are very happy about it and we are planning on creating more and more projects like that! ”
~ Jacob Kurek, CEO / Executive Producer at BluBlu Studios, Poland
“ We were thrilled to be recognized for our work on Mellow Mushroom’s website. This project was a full digital rebrand for the restaurant chain of 300. The client was wonderful in trusting our creative decisions on this project and winning this award really helped validate the trust the client had in us. ”
~ David Feldman, Creative Director at 3 Owl, Inc, United States
“ We’re happy to be seen by the best and receive their recognition. We’re also about to move to a bigger office which we need to decorate, and the two Platinum MUSE awards we won this year will look great there. ”
~ Marcel Vrieswijk, Founder & Managing Director at PlusOne, Netherlands
“ At 11 pm we found out about our creation winning gold! Even at such a late hour, we contacted our customer to congratulate on this landmark event. Gold in European competition is a reach award! This award for our team is a further proof that we go in the right direction, that design in Ukraine is worth of high international estimates. ”
~ Natali Zakashanska, Creative Director at Galagan Branding Agency, Ukraine
“ It is an enormous pride to be recognized once more by the MUSE Creative Awards’ jury and, in this way, to keep showing across borders the best of Portuguese design. These awards are the result of our quality, excellence, irreverence and permanent dissatisfaction, which allow us to exceed the expectations of our customers with the highly differentiating solutions we built for each project. ”
~ Diogo Gama Rocha, General Manager at Omdesign, Portugal
“ This award is especially meaningful as it supports our Barnett team’s mission to “elevate the goodness” in the world, and further celebrates the incredibly inspiring and life-changing work of our client, Eliminate Poverty Now. ”
~ Debbie Barnett, Founder & Creative Director at Barnett Design, Inc, United States
“ We're proud of everything we do here. No project is complete unless that's true of it. But even we can't deny that it feels pretty good to be recognized for our hard work. Winning a 2018 MUSE Creative Award is an honor--not because we feel we need to be awarded, but because we believe in the work we do. It's nice to know professionals outside our agency feel the same way as we do about the projects our talented designers are working on. ”
~ Brian Oster, Creative Director and President at OC Creative, United States
“ It is a great honor and a really important step for us, especially as it is a big international award. An award like this gives us an opening to new clients, and it gives our clients more confidence in our abilities during the creative process and that enables us to deliver even better work -so it’s a win for us as well as our clients. We believe that we have valuable insight in effective storytelling as well as a high artistic level in our designs, and winning these two MUSE Awards gives us a lot of confidence, and makes us make even better work in the future. ”
~ Esben Fisker, Designer & Managing Director & Co-Founder at Benny Box, Denmark
“ Winning the MUSE Creative Awards has validated the hard work and creativity that my team and I put into everything we do. It's easy for a small agency that often has to work with small budgets to get overlooked or buried by the PR machines of the big agencies. What's exciting about winning MUSE Creative Awards is seeing great ideas get recognized regardless of whether our name is on the side of the building. ”
~ Daniel Brown, Executive Creative Director at True North Inc, United States
“ Thanks a lot. It was a huge honor winning a Gold at the MUSE Awards. It meant a lot to us, being the first Kenyan and African agency to WIN. This has given us a lot of mileage and to our client a strong belief and conviction in our creative work and process. ”
~ Zachary Ouma, Creative Director at Dragonfly Limited, Kenya
“ It's awesome this is my 2nd year in a row taking home a MUSE Creative Award. What makes it extra special to me is both times I won it was for my work in virtual reality. Years ago when VR wasn't as popular many people told me VR is only for games and would never work for video so this award proved everyone wrong and shows with a little creativity and hard work anything can happen. ”
~ Jonathan Winbush, Founder and Artist at Winbush Immersive, United States
“ We take joy in seeing the products we put in the market are nominated. Our clients appreciate this to. It is a testimony of accomplishment. ”
~ Vasile B Tiplea, CEO & Director of Product and design at Creative27, United States
MUSE Creative Awards IS AN IAA COMPETITION
The International Awards Associate (IAA) is a group of industry innovators, creators, designers and communications professionals whose commitment is to move the industry forward through discovery and recognition of new and existing talent.
