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Brand directions · v3

The product is the survey. Four ways to sell it without selling it.

Once we're in the garden we win the job. So every direction here is engineered around one quiet move: make the survey feel like the obvious, valuable next step — not a sales call. Each applies a specific Sutherland principle and disrupts the category through clarity of price and process, not noise.

Direction 01

The Plan

We don't sell a survey. We send a designer to write your Patio Plan — a printed, numbered document. Yours to keep.

The survey move

The survey, disguised as a deliverable

The visit is named, packaged and given as a thing. Customers don't 'book a survey' (sounds like double-glazing) — they claim their Plan. The Plan is real: dimensions, drainage notes, three options at three prices, signed by the designer who wrote it. It costs us 90 minutes; it costs them nothing. Once the Plan is in their kitchen, we are halfway done.

Sutherland principle

Reciprocity + reframing (Sutherland)

Give something of standalone value before asking for anything back. Reframe the lead-gen step into the product itself, so the customer feels they got the deal even before signing.

A document, not a sales call

Every garden gets a Patio Plan.
Yours, on paper, in a week.

A senior designer visits, measures, draws, and leaves you with three options at three prices — signed, dated, written down. Whether you build with us or not, the Plan is yours to keep.

No fee. No obligation. No pressure on the day.

Patio Plan

No. 0411 / 26

Prepared by

J. Whittaker

For: 14 Elm Road, SE22

Garden 4.2 × 8.6 m · slight fall west · clay subsoil

A · Porcelain

Stone-effect mid range

£3,420

B · Sandstone Recommended

Sawn, riven finish

£3,990

C · Clay paver

Tumbled, herringbone

£4,260

Earliest start

Tue 9 June

Signed J.W.Valid 30 days

Vellum

Background

#F5EFE3

Document

Surface

#FFFFFF

Inkwell

Ink

#181614

Verdigris

Accent

#2E5E4E

Margin Red

Highlight

#A8341F

Voice & references

Calm, literate, slightly understated. Treats the customer as the decision-maker; never urgent, never salesy.

Borrows from: Aesop's free skin consultation · The Modern House valuations · a doctor's referral letter

CTA: "Claim your Patio Plan"

Aa — Display

"Fraunces", serif

Aa — Body

"Inter", sans-serif

Direction 02

Ninety Minutes

One visit. Ninety minutes. You leave with three prices and a date. That's the whole company.

The survey move

Time-box the visit until it sounds like a promise, not a chore

Stop asking for an open-ended slot. Sell a 90-minute appointment with a guaranteed deliverable at the end — three options, three prices, a start date. Specificity itself becomes the product. The implicit message: 'we're not the kind of people who waste your evening.'

Sutherland principle

Specificity as a costly signal (Sutherland)

Round numbers smell like marketing. Exact ones smell like operations. '90 minutes, three prices, a Tuesday slot' is something cowboys cannot credibly imitate without actually doing it.

One visit · Three prices · A Tuesday

Ninety
minutes.
Then you know.

We turn up when we said we would, walk the garden, and leave with three options costed to the pound. Most patios are decided in the next 48 hours. That's by design.

This week · SE22

Choose a slot

Mon

09:00

Mon

14:00

Tue

10:30

Wed

09:00

Wed

16:00

Thu

11:00

00:00We arrive (within 5 min)

00:25Measurements & soil check

00:55Material samples on the lawn

01:30You hold three written prices

Cartridge

Background

#FAFAF7

Pure White

Surface

#FFFFFF

Black

Ink / Accent

#0A0A0A

Hi-Vis

Highlight

#D6FF3C

Concrete

Support

#8F8F88

Voice & references

Operational, friendly, exact. Reads like a service-level agreement someone is quietly proud of.

Borrows from: Specsavers · Timpson · DPD's one-hour delivery slot

CTA: "Pick your 90 minutes"

Aa — Display

"Söhne Breit", "Inter", sans-serif

Aa — Body

"Inter", sans-serif

Direction 03

The Blueprint

An architect's drawing of your garden, a fixed price written on it, before a slab is lifted.

The survey move

Make the survey artefact look like an architect drew it

The visit produces a hand-annotated 1:50 site drawing — gradients, drainage, slab layout — with the price written in the bottom corner. People don't bin a drawing the way they bin a quote. The drawing makes us look like a practice, not a trade. The price on it makes the trade feel safe.

Sutherland principle

Borrow visual codes from a higher-status category (Sutherland)

Buyers compare you to whatever they bought last. If patios feel like 'a bloke with a van', look like a small architecture studio instead. The grammar of the artefact does the persuasion the words can't.

DRAWING 0411–A · SCALE 1:50

We draw your garden,
then we price it.

A senior designer comes out and produces a 1:50 site drawing — falls, drainage, slab layout, materials. The price is written in the corner. People keep drawings. They bin quotes. That's the point.

N ↑14 ELM RD · GARDEN PLANSHT 1/1

AREA
36 m²
FIXED PRICE
£4,260 INC. VAT

Drafting Blue

Background

#0E2A3A

Mid Plate

Surface

#15384B

Tracing

Ink

#EAF2F4

Pencil Yellow

Accent

#E8C547

Red Pen

Annotation

#E0492C

Voice & references

Precise, drawn-by-hand, lightly technical. Annotations, scale bars, north arrows. Talks about gradients and falls, not 'transformations'.

Borrows from: Architects' working drawings · OS maps · Ben Pentreath's studio

CTA: "Get a drawing of your garden"

Aa — Display

"GT Sectra", "Fraunces", serif

Aa — Body

"Inter", sans-serif

Direction 04

Open Book

Every price, every step, every margin — published. Then we send someone round to check the numbers fit your garden.

The survey move

Publish so much that the visit becomes the obvious next step

Show the full price list. Show the seven-step process. Show the surveyor's checklist before they arrive. The customer self-qualifies long before we knock. By the time the CTA appears it reads as 'come and check the numbers' — low-stakes, almost obligatory. The visit isn't sold; it's offered.

Sutherland principle

Radical transparency = social proof of competence (Sutherland)

Only operators with nothing to hide can publish everything. Doing it is a costly signal: it locks us into the price publicly. The CTA gets quieter the more the page tells.

Everything, published.

We charge £165 / m² fitted, on average. Ask why.

The full price book is on the site. The seven-step process is on the site. The surveyor's checklist is on the site. There isn't much left to find out — except whether those numbers fit your garden. That's what the visit is for.

How a job actually goes

01
You see the price online
Configurator gives a ±10% range
Day 0
02
We visit & confirm
90 min · written quote on the day
Day 1–5
03
You sit on it
No follow-up calls. Promise.
Day 5–14
04
Materials ordered
From your chosen yard
Wk 3
05
Build
5–8 working days, same crew
Wk 4–5
06
Sign-off
You walk it. Snag list. We fix.
Wk 5
07
Guarantee posted
Numbered. 2 years. In an envelope.
Wk 6

Step 02 is the only one with a person at your door. Everything else happens before, on screen, or after, in writing.

Newsprint

Background

#F2F0EB

White Page

Surface

#FFFFFF

Carbon

Ink

#1A1A1A

Underline

Accent

#D44A1C

Highlight

Marker

#FFE7A0

Voice & references

Direct, almost flat. No adjectives we can't prove. Numbers, dates, names. Lets the disclosure do the selling.

Borrows from: Monzo's public roadmap · Buffer's open salaries · Patagonia's footprint pages

CTA: "Have the numbers checked at your house"

Aa — Display

"Söhne", "Inter", sans-serif

Aa — Body

"Inter", sans-serif