A deteriorating barn in northern Missouri was in the process being demolished and scrapped when Ann Willoughy, a neighbor, asked to salvage the materials and use them to create a new barn on her own working farm. The Willoughby Barn, designed by Kansas City, MO-based El Dorado, is a dynamic building filled with daylight and breezes from the nearby woods that is an excellent example of reclaimed design. Situated to take in views of the fields, the barn serves as a stunning event space for the owner, who works as a graphic designer and business identity consultant.

AIGA CT, in coordination with Sappi Fine Paper and Billings Forge Community Works, invites you to spend an evening with nationally respected designer Ann Willoughby of Willoughby Design as she shares stories of unique spaces and how they deepen our work and play, change lives and shape a community. This event includes dinner of handmade pizza that you and other guests will create with the wheat grown and harvested (all by bicycle!) by Billings Forge artist-in-residence Ted Efremoff of Bread Cycle Works.

“Normally when you think of the green ethos, you don’t pair it with job-hunting and business professionals,
but because Willoughby brought the two together in a clean, sophisticated way, they were selected as this
year’s Green Award winners.”

Read the article in the October 2010 issue of Print magazine, which is available now.

Hallmark Cards, Barkley, C3, VML and Willoughby Design were among the winners Saturday at the sixth annual awards show of the local chapter of AIGA, the professional association for design. KC, the local chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Artists. In all, 87 works were recognized, including designs by students from area schools including the University of Kansas, the Kansas City Art Institute and Johnson County Community College.

Innovate or die. We’ve all heard it before, but never have those three words seemed more relevant than today. It has become vital to keep the creative juices flowing in every part of your business and start questioning the status quo.

It’s not always easy to break away from the “same old, same old” without tapping resources from the outside to spark new ideas. One proven way to inject life into strategic planning is to schedule a retreat, or “vision session.” These can be anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days. They should involve individuals from all levels of the organization to get a diverse snapshot of the company. And, everyone should come prepared to truly innovate and strategize for the future. Here are four key ways to make the most of your company retreat.

Katy Briggs shares how vision retreats can benefit the hospitality industry.

As business begins ramping up again, taking time away from your daily tasks to focus on the future and the strategies to help you succeed in our changed world becomes increasingly important. Corporate retreats and vision sessions provide an ideal way to bring teams together to innovate, strategize, rejuvenate and map a plan for moving forward. Thinking now about ways to improve customer service and guest amenities can be a good way to get started.

It’s a phrase I’ve heard more frequently over the last few months from clients, colleagues and friends: “Business is picking up.” Though it will take time to recover, for many the tide is starting to turn.

With the high tide comes opportunity. Opportunity to build innovative products and solutions. Opportunity to re-create your brand and more effectively resonate with consumers. Opportunity to create a fresh perspective.

From more than 800 submissions in the first HOW Logo Design Awards, HOW’s competition judge Jeff Fisher was responsible for going through a lengthy process of narrowing down the entries to the top 10 winning logos. Willoughby is proud to be honored in the top 10.

A powerful tool called design thinking can give you a competitive edge, writes Katy Briggs.

Innovate or die. We’ve all heard it before, but never have those three words seemed more relevant. It has become vital to keep the creative juices flowing in every part of your business and start questioning the status quo.

One day in June in the early ’70s, at the Aspen Design Conference, I met Milton Glaser for the first time. What I remember most is he carried a small student-grade sketchbook with him everywhere. During presentations in the legendary Aspen white tent, Milton sketched while each speaker took his or her turn on stage (it was mostly “his turn” back then)…

I was inspired to start my own sketchbook. More than anything, I wanted to hold on to the people and ideas … but it would be another few years before I began keeping sketchbooks on a regular basis. Today I use sketchbooks for travel and for work.