Some of my favorite projects to work on are for our lawn care or outdoor service clients. The fresh photos and bright colors help the designs look really sharp, and our landscaping clients are all really proud of the work they do, which makes our job a lot easier.

We just wrapped up a book for Hittle Landscape that will walk their clients through what working with them is like. The focus of the book is to give specific details on what to expect during each of the eight steps in the Hittle process. Written descriptions and bullet points were used for each section, along with photos of the process. The description of each step is important, but for this book we really wanted to allow the pictures of the beautiful lawns to stand out since this book will be taken to potential clients and used as a selling tool.

Like with any company providing a visual service, Hittle knows that their clients want to see what they are getting before they purchase anything. Fortunately Hittle had a lot of great pictures to get us started on the project, and we were able to incorporate many of them in the book. However, once we really started to progress through the design process, we realized we were missing a few key things.

Since this was a book about the process, we needed some action shots, and some before and after shots of their recent work. These high resolution photos weren’t something Hittle had a need for previously, with most of their work displayed online only, so we had to improvise. Fortunately Lorraine has been taking some photography classes and has a nice camera, so we were able to get some good quality pictures of Hittle’s most recent work, and even some of the construction itself. This minor hold-up was something that could have easily affected the timeline of the project if we had had to hire a professional photographer and work around their schedules and the weather.

As we worked on this book one of the members of the Hittle team said something along the lines of, “this has been a great learning experience, and we will know to be prepared with photos to upgrade the book in a year or two.”

I thought this was a great outlook, and something which could be useful for any company who provides a similar visual service. Being prepared ahead of time with good quality photos of your work is important, and can save a lot of time down the road. Going forward, Hittle plans to document their process and keep the photos of their work really current, which is a great practice for any company.