The annual event saw the company take a clutch of awards for outstanding internal communications for a range of corporate clients including Morrisons, Everything Everywhere (the merger of Orange and T-Mobile), Aviva, Asda and Anchor Trust.

The company’s education division took two more class-winning trophies for prospectus design work with Guiseley School, Leeds and for an innovative 3D movie produced for the Careers in Optics Working Group.

Words&Pictures also won certificates of merit for work with Hallmark and M&S and also in the Agency of the Year category.

Steve Doswell, CEO of the IoIC said Words&Pictures had been a presence in internal communication for some time. “In this year’s competition they’ve really shown their strengths across the board.

“People take note when an agency picks up a whole clutch of certificates and trophies on awards night but it’s sheer hard work and sustained creative effort, week in week out, that enables an award-winning team to emerge. I’m delighted for them,” he said.

Meanwhile, at another industry event on the same evening, the company was “highly commended” in the student recruitment category of the Recruitment Business Awards, held in Manchester. This award came in recognition of a body of multimedia work, New Dimensions in Optics, produced for the Careers in Optics Working Group.

Tony Layton, chairman and founder, said the century of wins represented the company’s “greatest milestone yet” and celebrated “the inspiration and the perspiration of a brilliant team”.

“We always had a vision that we would create the best internal communications company in the UK and, with this century of awards, we believe we’ve achieved that goal,” said Layton.

Lisa joins from Morrisons, the supermarket chain, where she worked on customer publications. In her role as senior client manager she will be responsible for managing internal communications projects with Yorkshire Water, The College of Law and Cape plc.

Tony Layton, founder and chairman, says: “Words&Pictures continues to recruit talented individuals. We also invest very significantly in training and development: this enables us to deliver innovative engagement for clients – both digitally, and in more traditional media.”

Damon’s feature article appeared in the internal magazine for client Everything Everywhere (the merged company from T-Mobile and Orange). The winning article explored how the two brands are coming together in single stores.

Everything Everywhere hired Words&Pictures to produce its bi-monthly employee magazine Everyone along with supporting online material last December.

Stuart Jackson, Brand Communications Director of Everything Everywhere said “Words&Pictures’ have helped us develop a powerful voice for our people and the writing in Everyone has been consistently first class. Our people love the magazine and we’re all very proud of it.”

Meanwhile, Damon Bowles, senior editorial manager at Words&Pictures said: “This is an important award for the company as a whole, as it now adds great writing to our many awards for great design. It’s also recognition that we successfully achieved our client’s aim of bringing the magazine to life by telling stories about Everything Everywhere’s products, services and key activities through the eyes of its people.”

“I’m particularly pleased since this feature was part of our original winning pitch presentation and was subsequently used in the first edition.”

Four new staff appointments have already been made to support this strategy, and we are now seeking to further boost our team of editorial design specialists both for print and digital markets.

Traditionally, we have worked in two sectors under the umbrella of Words&Pictures (educom) Ltd, a name which reflected the nature of our educational and commercial sectors where we have been operating for more than ten years.

We have recently formed Words&Pictures (Education) Ltd and Words&Pictures (Commercial) Ltd as separate companies to deal with clients as varied as primary schools and major high street retailers. A third company, Words&Pictures (Educom) Ltd has been formed to handle youth engagement work which spans both key markets.

Our commercial clients include Asda, Boots, Honda, Procter&Gamble, Yorkshire Water and Everything Everywhere (the merger between Orange and T-Mobile). Meanwhile, the education part of the business has been operating for the past decade in more than 400 schools, colleges and universities throughout the UK and beyond.

More recently, we began developing “youth engagement” projects, including award-winning work for the Careers in Optics Working Group – comprising high-street opticians including Specsavers, Boots and Vision Express, as well as professional bodies and universities. In a move reflecting a significant increase in this type of work, our third company now handles engagement and recruitment-linked projects.

We’re now actively recruiting further communication specialists after recently appointing Jen Higham, Anna Harding, Mike Woods and Robert Caddy to support the group’s strategic development and growth.

Financial director David Lynch said: “The move makes a lot of sense for us, organisationally, but clients should see little change in our very high service levels. Our people’s dedication to delivering effective, impactful communications remains the same as ever.”

Jen will be managing projects for Boots, Honda, Royal Bank of Scotland and supporting the team on Everything Everywhere and  P&G. 

Prior to joining W&P Jen studied Visual Communications and Marketing at Leeds University,with a year placement as  Marketing Assistant at La Redoute Fashion Catalogue.

Having graduated she took an Agency role as Account Executive progressing to Account Manager, working on mix of sectors including mail order, retail, charity, sports and leisure, electronics and healthcare.

Dr Brian Whittington who has recently retired from his post as Dean of Organisational Change at Leeds Metropolitan University, now advises our senior managers on strategies in the education sector.

Tony Layton, chairman and managing director – said everyone at the company was thrilled at the news of Dr Whittington joining the company.

“It’s an honour and an inspiration to have someone of Brian’s calibre joining us at such a critical time when educational organisations are needing all the help they can get in communicating their achievements,” said Layton.

“We’ve asked Brian to help our education team to build on its success… and it seems that already he is having a very positive effect. He brings more than 30 years’ experience in change management in higher education to his new role.”

Meanwhile, Dr Whittington said he is delighted to be able to help such an “innovative, progressive” organisation in its next stage of development.

Following recent contractual wins in higher education, such as the University of Salford, Words&Pictures is now actively exploring communications opportunities in Higher and Further Education.