Harvilles was at the heart of Fossgate, York’s top restaurant street. Its beautiful Art Deco style is unpretentious with a relaxed atmosphere.

Approach.
We were approached by Harvilles with a view to developing a social community who were united by a love of beef steak and good wine. Inspiration was drawn from the near riotous parties thrown by the ‘The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks’ in the early 18th century attended by writers and playwrights of the age.

Result.
Sadly Harvilles has now ceased trading and this project will have to stay on ice, but we’re hopeful that parties on the scale of ‘The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks’ will once again grace our fair city!

Find out more about the history of The Beek Steak Club

Customer First is the awarding body for ‘Putting the Customer First’, the National Standard for Customer Service, and a long term client of LazenbyBrown. They’re a great team of people and over the years we’ve developed a whole host of brand development projects for them.

Approach
Customer Service is all about people, and we knew that the criteria and standards that make up the award wouldn’t develop the Customer First brand on their own. What really brings the literature we’ve developed for this project to life is the photography, all shot by York superstar Jim Poyner (and some pretty tasty typography and design by yours truly… ahem, ahem!)

Result
The suite of literature we’ve developed has really stood the test of time, the design is timeless with the focus placed squarely on core message of the brand, the photography adds an honest, human touch to the communication messages.

What they said.
“LazenbyBrown are a central component of our marketing effort as a business, they are consistently creative and always exceed our expectations, allowing us to ‘expect more’ from our design”
Frea O’Brien  |  Manager  |  Customer First

The CETL initiative at York St John University has two main aims: to reward excellent teaching practice, and to further invest in that practice’ (HEFCE). C4C CETL – Working from the central concept that creativity is enhanced through participation in collaborative activity, this York St John University based initiative builds outwards from existing excellent creative and collaborative practice to support a range of projects across the Faculties of Art, Education & Theology, Health and Life Sciences and the York St John Business School.

Approach.
We were one of just a handful of individuals and businesses selected by C4C CETL for a year-long Creative Fellowship and following some pretty intense ideas sessions we introduced the project to Level 2 Fine Art students in autumn 2007.

What followed was a series of working sessions with actual and virtual visits to key sites in the City and around the world, and on campus debates, to explore and research the emotional and sociological impact of ‘authority’ in notices, airbrushed photos in magazines, information sources that form the news, historical facts and fictions.

The discussions developed to a point where the students were asked to develop a visual response, based on their understanding of the text that experiments with the tensions of authority, accuracy, subversion and misrepresentation. These responses could be static digital works, performance or dance-based, motion graphics, film or 3D.

The work created by the students was generally developed as site-specific and therefore was first installed in the true ‘city’ setting, before being brought together for a more formal exhibition in the C4C Centre. For many students this provided a very new experience, putting them and their work in closer contact with a far broader public that would ever been seen inside a gallery.

Result.
Pieces on show at the exhibition included a Viking Murder Scene, a reworking of the York Press headlines, and a stone plaque commemorating a late night open-air liaison. This exhibition was curated by LazenbyBrown, guest curator artist Keith Hopewell and the students. The opening of the exhibition was accompanied by DJ sets, and themed catering and was attended by students, staff and creative industry professionals.

Tadcaster Grammar School is a beacon school for Enterprise, sharing its expertise with other educational institutions around the UK.

Approach.
Over a 2 day project session we developed enterprise and creative activities for year 11 students at Tadcaster Grammar School, the projects were developed and implemented by us and were designed to inspire the students to consider the way the world of commerce and business are changing. For the project we developed a ‘virtual high street’ which saw small groups of students taking on a classic high street shop, such as butcher, florist or travel agents. We then asked students to consider the modern challenges to such businesses and develop new strategies to diversify or re-focus the business to ensure success. We gave the students simple mental processes and tools to help them develop innovative and original ideas they could then critique as a group.

Result.
The results were outstanding, with great feedback from the staff and students. The project was instigated by Clare Adamson, Head of Entreprise – it was a real pleasure working with Clare and great to see her pick up the Award for Enterprise at the Business Link Awards in 2008.