The First North East Roots Homecoming Award
A celebration of people, place & philanthropy
A night of recognition and joy
Just some of the recipients of the award we created for the Community Foundation North East Roots Homecoming awards were
George Clarke - architect and tv presenter
Tim Healy - actor and co-founder of Sunday for Sammy
Thom Lewis music producer - for Sam Fender’s Hypersonic Missiles & Seventeen Going Under Albums
Ann Cleaves OBE - British Crime writer - who writes the Vera Stanhope, Jimmy Perez, and Matthew Venn series.
More information about North East Roots can be found here
The award and event was supported by North East Combined Authority Mayor Kim McGuinness
Quote taken from the Community Foundation Website
“Community Foundation North East proudly hosted the first-ever North East Roots Homecoming, a landmark celebration of our region’s global community and the spirit of generosity that connects us all. From 5 – 8 December (2025), a series of events brought together people who care about the North East, wherever they live, to reconnect and explore how they can make a difference across the region.
Homecoming is part of our wider North East Roots initiative, which focuses on celebrating success stories, inspiring people with a passion for the North East to give back, and building pathways to opportunity for those who need them most. At the heart of this initiative is the North East Roots Fund, established in 2023 to strengthen local communities with the support of those who share a special connection to the region. Its mission is clear: inspire giving, celebrate global impact, and grow an active global network that helps tackle poverty upstream by boosting access to economic opportunities. “
About the Commission
In 2025 we were approached by the Community Foundation to create an award for their North East Roots Homecoming award ceremony. Our client had a clear idea of what they wanted:
A medal featuring multiple landmarks from the North East of England to represent the recipients’ home towns
An embossed certificate for the awardees
Oak frames for the certificates and medals
A matching pin badge for keynote speakers and attendees of the awards
Our Director Corinne Lewis-Ward has been exploring themes of home and the north east for 15 years through her luxury souvenir brand Powder Butterfly. Through her work for Powder Butterfly, Corinne has also developed a high-quality team of British manufacturers, many of whom are based in the North East.
The design for the medal, pin, packaging and certificate needed to have the organisation’s branding and brand colours throughout and needed to be high quality but also meet the budgetary requirements of the client and their sponsor organisations.
There were three manufacturers involved in the commission
The medal and pin manufacturer
The certificate printer
The framer
Close up of medal for the North East Roots Award
Challenges of the commission
Tight Deadline - The main challenges of this project were the tight deadline and coordinating the work of multiple manufacturers.
Time of year - The design and manufacture of this commission was done at the busiest time of year for our manufacturers as it was very close to Christmas.
Attention to detail - Making sure that there were not typos or mistakes was crucial as the awards were being framed and there was no room for error. So everything had to be double, triple and quadruple checked. Any mistake would have been very costly.
Design sign off - getting the seal of approval from all key stakeholders to agree on the design can also be a challenge with commissions like this - however the team at Community Foundation where really helpful and this helped the design process and timescale immensely.
Medal, Pin & certificate for North East Roots Award
“It was a real honour and privilege to create an award for this celebration of the inspirational people of the North East of England who have made a significant contribution to the region. The Community Foundation were a wonderful client to work with. Their continued commitment towards building a thriving, generous & inclusive North East by investing in communities is something that is deeply rooted in the work that we do at Creative Heritage Studios.
To be commissioned by such a crucial and impactful client while also being part of recognising the outstanding contribution of the awardees was something we will cherish as part of our portfolio of work”
Get in Touch
If you have a special event coming up that you would like a unique, high quality British made award for then please get in touch. You can commission us as a social enterprise and 20% of our profits will be re-invested in our work with the neurodivergnet creative community.
Alternatively we work closely with educational institutions and deliver co-design opportunities to young people across the North East. If you would like your commission to have an even wider social impact then contact us to find out how you can work with us or explore how you can work with us here.
This commission was delivered through our Antiques of the Future design service.
