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I would suggest for starters portuguese laurel and mix these up a little bit with a few Photinia Red Robin. Cheap and quick to get established, Find a good trade nursery and buy large plants.
Do they want individual trees or a hedge, evergreen or deciduous?
Graeme's suggestions are good, I'd just advise having a look around locally as some areas the photinias get a lot of blackspot and can look horrible. Very localised so far as I've seen, but worth seeing if others in the same street look healthy.
If they want deciduous trees then ornamental birch or rowan can be kept in check and look good in a row.
Do they currently have a fence line? If so something like Pleached Hornbeam or Taxus baccata (yew tree).
End of the day, may be the budget will decide what type you go for! :-)
Great you're asking for advice. It's hard to know what to recommend without talking to the client and seeing the site, though. Pictures?
One thing I learned very early on is that the more you try to "hide" an ugly feature, the more you draw the eye to it.
Think about an old shed, and most people will put up a feature like a trellis, or a wall of conifers to hide it. In fact, all that does is say "there's something hidden here, let's look around the side to see". It's actually a design feature used to draw the attention in.
If you put a focal point in front, or to one side, the eye is drawn away. Planting a really exciting bed to distract, a big lump of stone or a pergola, they all draw the eye away from the thing you're trying to disguise.
If all they want is castle-walls of high hedges then that's another question, though. That suggests an evergreen hedge, so boring old conifers or laurel. Grow it up high, then they'll be moaning there's too much shade! :-)
6-8ft isn't very high if you are thinking about trees - a good standard will have a clear trunk up to 8', but as you say 'trees' I'll keep to that. Personally I can't stand pleached trees, so for me they would be out. We do not know what depth of planting you have, do they need to be in a row(hope not!) or could you plant a small copse or graduated bed. If you have the space, a patch of Birch may look good - not a solid barrier, but attractive all the year round.
I think mixing Laurel with Photinia would lead to dominance by the laurel. Privet would be easy to manage to that height or Beech/ Hornbeam depending on wetness.