Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
BRAND CAMP
Ann willoughby’s kansas city-based firm uses a collaborative aproach to branding and design.
By Kathleen Leighton
Founded in Kansas City 31 years ago, Willoughby Design Group (www.willoughbydesign.com) is a brand innovation and identity design firm with a client roster that is a testament to the success of its owner’s organic, collaborative approach; they’re behind the branding and design of retail start-ups like Three Dog Bakery, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Noodles & Company and SPIN! Neapolitan Pizza.
“I approach projects from 10,000 feet above,” Ann Willoughby says, in a soft southern drawl that comes from a childhood spent in Mississippi. “Once the whole idea is framed, any of the pieces can be moved around and changed. We collaborate with our clients on the strategic underpinning of the brand, and they’re involved every step of the way.”
To facilitate this collaboration, Willoughby built a state-of-the-art barn on her farm near Weston, Mo, a 30-minute drive from Kansas City, as a place to hatch great ideas. Constructed with 100-year-old timber, this is the site of three-day workshops during which clients gather with designers to toss around the words and phrases that they associate with their company, and to introduce the ideas and concepts that may direct the branding campaign.
“CEOs love being part of this process,” Willoughby says. “Everyone who has a stake in the company can participate. Many branding companies use the silo approach, where one department comes up with an idea and that idea is then sent to another department, where it is refined and so on. We believe in integrating ideas and innovating from the start rather than taking separate pieces and trying to make them work together.”
Appropriately for a process that takes place in a barn, it’s a low-tech affair.
First, lots of words on Post-it notes are put on a huge board and arranged into clusters, which makes the relevance of different ideas more apparent.
Another display is then created, this time with swatches of color, bits of twine and yarn, photos and font styles to evoke the feeling of the brand. Again, ideas are pulled together so they can be shaped, tested and refined.
“Everyone has pretty much the same technology in this business, but we’re different because we bring in the human desire,” Willoughby says. “We do research and testing earlier and more often to create a product that people really want. Technology never drives our innovation.”
Willoughby believes it is this attitude that sets her company apart, because the process, like a brand, is an organic, adaptable thing—and because of this, she hopes the approach will last beyond the initial workshops. For her, part of the fun, and the challenge, is in keeping a brand relevant.
“A design or a brand is never really finished,” she says. “You’re constantly improving it. It’s a living entity that must stay fresh. You can feel when the life is going out of something, so we’re always working to make that brand better, to keep it alive.”
And sometimes, it seems, a group effort is just what it takes.
TURNING A NEW LEAF
Dunder-Mifflin, watch out— Willoughby Design Group is good on paper, too.
New Leaf Paper, an environmentally responsible paper company in San Francisco, contacted Willoughby when it decided to enter the retail market. The goal: to change the public’s perception of recycled paper.
“New Leaf hired us to go into the consumer market and tell a story,” Willoughby says. “Most recycled paper is 30 percent recycled; this product is 100 percent recycled and looks like virgin paper. Sustainable does not have to mean inferior.”
Through research, Willoughby found that consumers didn’t want “green” thrown in their faces. They preferred to be told more subtly that a product was environmentally friendly. They also found that teenage girls wanted different colored notebooks for each subject; for boys, a plain color was fine. An ecological message was embedded in the art, and each notebook has an eco-score, detailing the amount of greenhouse gasses, water and energy saved with its production.
