Word Association

Client: whg (Walsall Housing Group)
Project: 100s book

With a move to a new office planned, at 100 Hatherton Street, housing association whg saw the opportunity to mark the occasion by producing a publication that celebrated its successes to date, and set out its stall for future progress. So the 100 book was born.

Objective
While the book was to celebrate whg’s progress, it needed to demonstrate in human terms the positive impact that the whg team had on peoples’ lives. And the facts included in the document needed to impress not simply by their numbers, but in the measure of the benefits delivered.

Our role
With the concept set out, the challenge was not to let the 100 idea overwhelm the document. So the Word Association team worked on designing a book containing 100 pieces of information; but of these, it was decided early on that 10 would be case studies of customers, choosing one from each decade of life. The remaining 90 facts were selected to demonstrate the breadth of whg’s impact on customers’ lives. The Word Association team directed the photography to reflect the articles, achieving outstanding photography. Although based around the move to new premises, the content needed to be largely timeless, to increase its shelf life.

The result
The simple, flexible design leant itself to two production treatments. A limited edition run of 250 hardback books was printed, for select recipients and to act as an enduring reminder of the new office opening. At the same time, a stitched, soft cover version of the design was produced in larger numbers, to act as a more versatile introduction to whg and what it stands for.