News

We’ve moved

Posted on 25.01.12 by Matt_B

…and to mark the occasion, we had this novel change of address card created by Toby Triumph at YCN. Toby has also painted two fantastic murals at our new premises.

News

Sunday is highest placed independent in Marketing’s Agency of the Year awards

Posted on 13.12.11 by Matt_B

Marketing has revealed its 2011 Publishing Agency of the Year results. In what has been a fantastic year for Sunday, we were placed above all other independent agencies in our sector.

Nicola Clark of Marketing wrote, “A raft of creative and ground-breaking work ensured that Sunday caught the judges’ attention. The tough economic situation has had little impact on Sunday’s bottom line… Its growth came on the back of an extraordinary tranche of big-name new-business wins, including Sky, Vodafone and Marks & Spencer. The agency also created the winner of the APA’s Launch of the Year award, A Thousand Little Things for Boden.”

Sunday has been shortlisted for this prestigious accolade every year since the agency was established in 2005. In 2008, we were earmarked ‘Agency to Watch’. We went on to be crowned Publishing Agency of the Year in 2009.

The full Agency of the Year supplement will accompany tomorrow’s edition of Marketing.

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Bake

Scotch Whisky Dundee Cake

Posted on 30.11.11 by Florencia

Scottish Whisky Dundee CakeIngredients
6 ounces currants
6 ounces sultanas
4 ounces glace cherries
3 ounces mixed candied peel, finely chopped
grated rind 1 small orange
grated rind 1 small lemon
5 ounces butter, at room temperature
5 ounces soft brown sugar
3 large eggs
8 ounces plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons ground almonds
Pecan halves for decorating the top
1 miniature bottle single malt Scotch whisky (3 1/2 tablespoons)
Marmalade, e.g. caramelised orange and calvados marmalade
A greased and lined 20cm round cake tin

1. Start the night before by weighing out the fruit, peel and zest. Sprinkle over 3 tablespoons of the whisky (you can use the extra half tablespoon for feeding once cooked), mix well, cover and leave to soak overnight.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 170°C/325°F/gas mark 3.
Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy – using a deep bowl and an electric whisk is recommended.
Beat the eggs separately in a bowl, and gradually add them into the butter and sugar mixture (if it starts to look curdled, you can sift in some of the flour).
Next, using a large tablespoon, carefully fold in the sifted flour and baking powder (I recommend lifting the sieve up high to get as much air in). Your mixture needs to be of a soft, dropping consistency so, if it seems too dry, add a dessertspoon of milk.

3. Now carefully fold in the ground almonds followed by the whisky-infused currants, sultanas, cherries, mixed peel and orange and lemon zest. Then spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin, smoothing it out evenly with the back of the spoon.
Place the cake in the centre of the oven and bake for 2–2½ hours. When cooked, it should be firm and springy to the touch. For an extra check, you can insert a fine skewer in the centre. It should come out clean when fully cooked.

4. Once cooked, leave the cake to cool for about 30 minutes on a wire cake rack. You can then feed it with the remaining whisky. Do this by making small holes in the top and feeding in with a spoon.

5. To decorate, start by melting 3 tablespoons of the marmalade in a small pan over a low heat. Once the marmalade has melted, brush it onto the surface of the cake as a glue to stick the pecans on (be careful as it will be very hot).
Finish by brushing over the top of the pecans with the melted marmalade. This will give the cake a nice glossy look.

News

A very big year for awards at Sunday

Posted on 25.11.11 by Matt_B

With three of our publications recognised at this year’s APA Awards, a record 16 APA shortlists (the second highest in the industry), a best-in-class at the Interactive Media Awards for Toyota, and a BSME nomination for editor Vicki Brookes… it’s been a very big year for awards at Sunday.

Still basking in the glory of our APA Awards success on Wednesday evening, we thought we’d share some more of the judges’ comments on our beautifully crafted, brilliantly effective publications.

Ethos for Serco got the evening off to a flying start when it picked up the Best Public Sector/Government Title gong. With a readership of politicians, civil servants, the voluntary sector, think tanks, interest groups, academics and journalists, Ethos has its work cut out to engage them all. “It achieves this by commissioning some of the world’s top business and political journalists to get to the heart of the topical issues within the public sector,” said the judges.

This was shortly followed by Modus, the monthly magazine for members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, being Highly Commended in the Best Membership Title category. Modus also received recognition for Art Director, Christie Ferdinando, in the Designer of the Year and Best Use of Illustration categories. This is a phenomenal achievement in the publication’s first year.

The evening culminated with our brilliant Boden book scooping one of the night’s most coveted prizes, Launch of the Year. “Abandoning traditional approaches, the title was crafted to take readers on a carefree journey, with energetic layouts featuring articles by some of the country’s leading writers sitting alongside beautiful illustrations and interactive elements… This is a real delight. It’s certainly the most surprising and effective title in the category,” commented the judges on A Thousand Little Things.

Matt Beaven, Editorial and Creative Director at Sunday, said, “The work we’ve produced this year has been our strongest to date. A Thousand Little Things was probably the most talked about piece in our sector and set a new benchmark in creativity. Across the board, our teams have pushed the boundaries to create standout work for our clients.”

Toby Smeeton, Managing Director, added, “The range of categories in which we were shortlisted is testimony to our ability to deliver brilliantly effective work in any sector and any media. We couldn’t be more chuffed. It’s been a very big year for industry awards. And, with a raft of new business wins, a very big year all round.”

The full list of APA shortlists for Sunday was:

  • Best Automotive Title, Today Tomorrow for Toyota
  • Best Finance Title, PetPeople for Petplan
  • Best Membership Title, Modus for RICS
  • Best Public Sector/Government Title, Ethos for Serco
  • Best Internal Communication, Scoop for Serco
  • Best Brochure, The Art of Working Together for Strutt & Parker
  • Best Annual Report, Corporate Responsibility Review for Serco
  • Best Use of Photography, Ethos for Serco
  • Best Use of Illustration, Today Tomorrow for Toyota
  • Best Use of Illustration, A Thousand Little Things for Boden
  • Best Use of Illustration, Modus for RICS
  • Designer of the Year, Catherine Hopkinson, Today Tomorrow for Toyota
  • Designer of the Year, Christie Ferdinando, Modus for RICS
  • Best Specialist Publication, A Thousand Little Things for Boden
  • Best Integrated Marketing Solution (B2B), Ethos and ethosjournal.com for Serco
  • Launch of the Year, A Thousand Little Things for Boden

Roll on 2012.

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News

TWO wins at the APA Awards, and more

Posted on 24.11.11 by Ollie

Hooray! We’ve won two mighty gongs at the International Content Marketing Awards 2011, the customer publishing industry’s annual award ceremony.

First up, Ethos, our magazine for international service company Serco, won Best Public Sector/Government Title. The judges said “Ethos simply stood out above all the others. The design, writing and overall quality really grabs you and pulls you in.”

The other big win of the night was for A Thousand Little Things, our highly inventive and rather beautiful book, published on behalf of Boden. Announced as Launch of the Year, it beat off some incredibly stiff competition – see the shortlist here.

And finally, judges gave Modus, our magazine for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a Highly Commended award in the Best Membership Title category.

Thanks guys, we’re chuffed.

And a tad hungover, due to one or two too many glasses of fizz. Roll on next year…

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News

Today Tomorrow online wins Best in Class

Posted on 09.11.11 by Ollie

More great news about Sunday’s online work: Today Tomorrow, the online magazine for Toyota, has won the Best in Class Award in the Magazine category at the Interactive Media Awards (IMA).

The Best in Class Award ‘represents the very best in planning, execution and overall professionalism’ and is achieved by only a fraction of the entrants each year. What’s more, the judges gave Today Tomorrow a fantastic overall score of 487 out of 500, which included a perfect 100 marks for both Content and Feature Functionality.

This is the second Sunday website to have success in the IMA – earlier this year, WW2History.com picked up Best in Class Awards in both the Education and Reference categories.

A hearty ‘well done’ to the Toyota team!

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Think

Format: the invisible creative factor?

Posted on 31.10.11 by Ollie

Words, images, typography, visual ID. These are the meat and bread of creative editorial. It’s what we do, day in, day out.

But it’s easy to forget how important the format – the size, pagination and binding – is in all of this.

Sometimes the format and content are unconnected, with the former dictated purely by the most efficient use of paper and mailing. For the most part, we think that’s a less-than-great thing. That said, it can work very well for news-driven publications, where the words, navigation and visual identity are the most important thing, hands-down.

And it doesn’t seem remotely controversial to say that for highly visual, photography-rich work, a larger format works best, giving those images plenty of space to breathe and make the impact they were created for. These can get tricky when they get too large, but up to a certain size, bigger can often be better.

But what about truly compact formats? We’ve all seen the handbag editions of well-known consumer magazines. Some love them, some don’t. Personally, I find it’s too much content packed into too small a space. Maybe this is symptomatic of the content being conceived for a larger format, and then compressed down unnaturally.

But where the content is commissioned for the compact format, it gets really interesting. For example, we’re fans of the re-designed Readers Digest, which offers clarity, ease of navigation and lots of good content.

Furthermore, small formats can be perfect for certain subjects. We’ve found this with the latest edition of PetPeople, the newly reformatted magazine that we publish for pet insurer Petplan. The small format allows you to tell stories in a different way. It opens up room for a larger number of smaller, shorter stories – so you can have more threads of interest to pull in readers. And with social media increasingly driving attention online, that’s becoming increasingly important.

And above all, for a magazine about pets, it’s a cute format. Not many magazines in the financial services sector can say that.

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Play

Easy trapezey

Posted on 27.10.11 by Jessie

Sunday offers its employees a bit of cash each year towards what is informally known as the ‘make yourself interesting fund’ or, more officially, the high interest account. Taking this name literally, I bought myself some flying trapeze lessons with the lovely Ezra and his lads at Gorilla Circus. Having mastered a knee hang, I bring you my efforts at the upside-down-split thing (not sure of the technical term for this). A rather wobbly catch, I’m afraid, but a catch all the same. Go, me (the one in black).

Play

Our new sub Marc: importer of rare animals

Posted on 24.10.11 by Ollie

New recruit Marc is already making an impression at Sunday with his Exocet eye for detail and unflappable demeanour. But it turns out he’s also an importer of lizards… who’d have thought it?

Marc had just got back from a holiday in Greece this month when he found a terrified gecko hiding in his luggage. A scuffle ensued, in which he and his girlfriend tried to get the little blighter into an ice cream tub, then no end of late-night phone calls to various animal charities to work out what to do with it.

Of course it’s bad manners not to feed your guest, so during this time Marc also had to dig around in the flat for some tasty insects to feed him. Sweet revenge, or a horrible ordeal, depending on how you look at it.

The next day, the lovely people at Beaver Water World, an animal and reptile sanctuary in Kent, said that they were happy to give a home to the gecko, and give him plenty of crickets to feed on.

A happy ending for a very adventurous gecko… naturally Marc’s writing in with his experience to the letters pages of PetPeople, our magazine for pet insurer Petplan.

News

The justice debate

Posted on 12.10.11 by Jessie

Working with Shoot The Company, we recently produced a short film for our client, Serco, on life at Doncaster prison and the payment by results system.

Prisoners, members of the charity Catch22 and John Biggin, the prison’s Director, talk about how reoffending is being reduced at the prison. For example, by helping prisoners to bond with their children – apparently, those who maintain their family relationships are six times less likely to reoffend.

Worth a look, especially in light of Ken Clarke’s conference speech about getting prisoners to work while in jail. http://ind.pn/oVzdP0