Landscape World 2015/16 Brochure
Traditionally, January is the month for maximum grumbling by my postie regarding the ever-increasing numbers of brochures, catalogues, albums, portfolios and every other form of self-promotion for the coming season he has to lug all the way up the lane and then cram through my letterbox. After the Christmas parcel and card rush, he was hoping for a lightening of the load this month, but no! Here's that bloody McCormack with a sack-load of sodding brochures.
However, before delving deep into the perfectly formed, shiny and sweet-smelling new presentations from all the usual suspects, I thought we could start the year by looking at a brochure which has been out for a few months but missed its chance by coinciding with the busiest time of the 2015 season. Luckily, the company behind it has also just re-launched their website , tying it in with the brochure, so, with a sprinkling of serendipity, it's time has come…again!
Landscape World are not a national name, but in North-West England, they are widely regarded as one of the most reliable and eclectic suppliers of paving, hard-landscaping, drainage and aggregates in the region, served by extremely knowledgeable staff and run by genuinely passionate owners. They specialise in hard-landscape supply, picking what they feel to be the best of hundreds of different product groups from almost every recognisable brand on the British market. They also have a dedicated display area where all sorts of products can be seen in natural light, laid alongside and among dozens of complimentary paving and walling materials. It is, in essence, the one-stop supplier for all your hard-landscaping needs.
As a smaller company, they don't have the budget to produce a lavish, all-singing-and-dancing heavyweight brochure, but they have managed to produce a very useful and informative A5-sized brochurette which portrays the more interesting product lines they stock, with a lot of the superfluous waffle usually associated with paving brochures carefully removed using a pick-axe.
So none of the usual trumpet-blowing and promotion of all sorts of worthy schemes, just a few gracious words of welcome and then straight in with the paving, starting with the riven flagstones which remain the most popular choice for patio paving. Some of these will be familiar, others less so, but there's an excellent selection and the layout used is simple and straightforward: full page photographs with minimal flowery text, basic icons to explain size options, and just the critical information on thicknesses, availability, and complementary items.
If there was to be any criticism, it would be that the information, printed in light blue and small-ish font, can be hard to read for those of us with eyesight problems.
The brochure unashamedly focuses on natural stone but there is space given over to aggregates, block paving, walling, mortars and more, as space permits. It wouldn't be fair to expect a company of this size to produce a fully comprehensive catalogue of everything they stock in just 40 pages, but it does give a good overview and the original photies are well worth seeing.
Excellent installation advice is provided over the closing pages (full disclosure – written by me!) and, overall, it's a handy little booklet to show potential customers, giving them imagery they won't have seen anywhere else along with uncomplicated size and quantity information.
When you see for yourself what can be achieved by a smaller, regional supplier, it really does make you re-consider what is put out by the big national brands with budgets at least an order of magnitude greater than that available to Landscape World. It's a genuinely useful tool for both contractors and DIYers and backed up by a superb 200+ m² display area which is not just comprehensive but is meticulously maintained (so not hidden beneath pallets of other materials for which the stockist has no room!) and a real asset to anyone thinking of installing paving in the coming year.
Landscape World: 0151 424 6111
Click here to download brochure
