About John Mchugh Design
CREATIVE SERVICES AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION
About John McHugh the Person
CREATIVE SERVICES AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Credits include: production designer • set designer • supervising art director • senior art director • set dec art director • assistant set decorator • set dresser
Profile:
After graduating with an Interior Design BA Hons degree from Kingston University, then first employed by Fitch, one of London’s most prominent commercial retail and brand design practices, a passion to realise ideas at a much faster pace propelled me forward to pursue a career in set design.
This skillset switch enriched my abilities tenfold as I went on to gain extensive production experience at London Weekend Television, working on everything from Drama, Comedy to Entertainment with every other genre in between.
Then, since flying solo my freelance career has gone from strength to strength with my services being sought by the BBC, ITV, CH4, CH5, SKY plus various commercial networks either directly, or through prolific key production personnel.
Keeping abreast of current trends, technologies and tastes give me an edge over most and is perhaps why many want to engage my extremely broad skillset since I can truly undertake whatever a brief requires, easily slotting into any role, happily working as a Production Designer, Set Designer, Art Director, Set Decorator, Stylist or Creative Consultant.
Having a natural ability to adapt and multi-task in this way has proved to be a valued asset for clients, especially as this also brings a wealth of past production knowledge and artistic insight that allows me to approach any project today always from a fresh perspective.
A major claim to fame and one of my proudest achievements to date is being part of the original creative team that conceived the 3-dimensional world of the Teletubbies. This amazing opportunity reflects an innovative attitude that demonstrates a keen interest to keep ahead of the rest and shows that I can really turn my mind to help realise anything.
It has always been important to continue challenging myself and explore new, relevant creative production processes which might enhance future projects. In the past, this led to being one of the first to work with the company that introduced Motion Capture to this country and more recently have gained a qualified understanding of designing for Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality immersive experiences.
Other Professional pursuits:
Over the last decade, I have pursued a very different line of work which has always been of personal interest. Keeping a hand in a few design projects in the past 10 years has allowed me to explore the world of production development, setting up companies North of Watford and High5TV to formulate relevant programme ideas for potential exploitation.
In 2015 this passion led me to set up creative development company INFAMOUS TELEVISION to promote a portfolio of newly devised ideas and formats covering a wide range of genres.
“Creating a believable, surreal, dramatic dystopian world on such a restricted budget is no mean feat, and you took everything in your stride to produce the impossible.”
“Your experience and skill produced an array of stylish backdrops for some of the most important scenes in each episode of Autopsy, which added immense value to the stories told.”
“An unflappable nature and charming approach to everyone, eased us through a very difficult and tight schedule both on the day and the days leading up to filming.”
“Your imaginative eye certainly enhanced the cavernous venue our annual Hero’s Awards event was held in last night, helping to strike the right balance of corporate cool vibe and trend setting brand.”
“Wow, you are one of the only designers I know who has the ability to turn around a challenge which may appear impossible to others and help create an idea into a main event”
“Great to have you work with us again. It is always a challenge when producing a live show, though it makes the job a whole lot easier when professionals like yourself are part of the team.”
“I just want to say a huge and rather emotional ‘Thank you’ for your contribution to this second series of ‘Brothers and Sisters’. The quality of your work and of the production as a whole was quite remarkable.”
“The series is thought to be the best yet. Your own particular effort fits in with a huge team, but without it, an essential component is missing. Thank you very much for working so hard for us.”
“Enormous thanks for all your sterling work and driving such a superb creative team that consistently delivered against all odds. I think we have made a series that we can all be justifiably proud of.”