Football theme nets 12th award

Most people agree that annual reports make dull reading so eight years ago Nottingham Community Housing Association (NCHA) decided to take a different approach.

Joining forces with Nottingham design agency Purple Circle, NCHA vowed to get their report noticed so they could highlight their work in affordable housing throughout the East Midlands. The strategy has resulted in a series of awards ever since with the latest just announced.

NCHA's 2008 Annual Report has not disappointed and following success at the CIB awards in May, judges for one of the country's top design awards have now voted the same way. The Creme Awards gave Purple Circle the top prize of Gold in the Annual Reports section.

Entitled "NCHA United v Homelessness & Poverty FC" the report emulated a football programme from 1973 (the year NCHA began) - an idea conceived by NCHA staff to show their teamwork in the fight to provide affordable housing.

This latest prize brings the tally of awards for NCHA's annual report over the last eight years to a neat round dozen and picking up the award Purple Circle's Michael Slack said :

"I think innovation is a state of mind. You can let the pressures of recession crush it or rise to the challenge. If a client is willing to partner with us then between us we can achieve great things - twelve awards in eight years shows that this approach really works."