What Ann Willoughby, C.E.O. and president of Willoughby Design Firm in Kansas City, creates is definitely not art in the traditional sense. What she creates is branding identities through her room designs and graphic designs, which she has utilized in working with clients like Three Dog Bakery, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Noodles & Co., SPIN! and Kevin Carroll. She has won numerous national and international design awards. To see her work in person, go to the first-floor gallery of the Olive DeLuce Fine Arts Building through March 21 during regular business hours.

Q. Do you consider what you do an art?

A. Let me put it this way. What we do for our clients, when it’s really good, there’s a bit of art and class and beauty in it. But it’s really about problem solving. I would compare it to architecture. When you’ve done a wonderful building... of course it’s art and it’s beautiful, but in another way what we do has to satisfy very fundamental human needs. The need for the market place. There’s so many other things that have to happen besides pure expression.

Q. Do you have a favorite design?

A. I have favorite clients I’ve worked with. Probably one of my favorite clients is a man named Kevin Carrol. He is a motivational speaker. He used to work for Nike. We’ve done a couple of books for him. We’ve designed books; wonderful, exciting, very colorful books. They really inspire people in sport and play.

Q. What inspired you to go into this field?

A. I was always interested in retail design, merchandising and all the aspects of theater and design, and the closest thing to what I enjoyed when I was a child was really store design and that’s how I got into it.

Q. When it comes to the designs, where do you get your inspirations from in regards to the design aspect?

A. It depends on the clients, but generally, I would say it’s the same as an artist. We do a combination of research about the topic and about the subject matter. And we will also travel a lot, you know, to other cultures and food. All of those things very much influence the way that they... really informed our work.

Q. Whenever people come to see this exhibit, what do you want people to take away from it?

A. This is primarily for students at the college and also I think this is for people in the community. I think it might be interesting for people to see what happens in the career of a graphic designer over 30 years. The kind of work we do. The kind of clients we work with. It’s like one of those experiences in life when you see... you do all these things and you don’t know where they come from. And now I show how we put plans together and how we help companies and organizations put their name out there and help them design their stores and their packaging and their products. It’s kind of a behind-the-scenes look at what a firm like mine does.

By Blake Hannon

St. Joseph News-Press