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.

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.

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…

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!

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

Today Tomorrow (Toyota), Ethos and ethosjournal.com (Serco), A Thousand Little Things (Boden) and Modus (RICS) each received three nominations, including recognition for Art Directors Catherine Hopkinson and Christie Ferdinando.

Further shortlists came for our work for Allianz, Strutt & Parker and two other Serco titles.

Toby Smeeton, Managing Director of Sunday, said: “This has been a fantastic year for Sunday with major new business wins and standout work for our clients. To receive 16 nominations in our sixth year as an agency is simply phenomenal.”

The winners will be announced on Wednesday 23 November.

Instead of rushing in and making a PDF page-turner, we’ve stepped back and made something that we feel is much more appropriate to the online medium. The content’s all there… it’s just reinvented and much more interactive – everything that an online mag should be, we feel. It’s also heaving with new video content that we commissioned especially (plus lots of curated video).

It’s a great compliment that the client has loved our photos and videos of the new Yaris so much that they are now being used extensively on the main www.toyota.co.uk website.

The URL for the online magazine is: magazine.toyota.co.uk.

So I just wanted to take this opportunity to personally say a huge, public huge thank you to everyone who has been involved with us over this period.

Firstly, thank you to our clients for putting your faith in the teams here. It’s an old adage, but a true one, that we are only as good as the work we do and the company we keep. We are delighted, and very proud, to have such a wonderful range of blue-chip clients.

Secondly, thank you to our suppliers. We are grateful for your continued support and expertise.

Thirdly, thank you to the Sunday staff, whose dedication, skill and unwavering enthusiasm is an absolute pleasure to experience every day.

From printed magazines and journals, to online content, blogs, apps and mobile content, our range of skills has extended over the years. But, we remain more convinced than ever of the power of great content – in whatever medium – to generate lasting, profitable, relationships with our clients’ audiences.

Here’s to the next six years!