The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center is renowned as a leading force in the fight against cancer and one of the most prominent research organizations in the world. But the reality is that most people don’t understand the work they do or the link between their scientific research and the lives it changes—including world-changing breakthroughs like bone marrow transplantation, the HPV vaccine and adoptive T-cell therapy.

Together with the Fred Hutch brand team, we convened a series of campus-wide conversations. There, we evangelized the importance of the very idea of brand itself and used that shared understanding as a launching point for deep and honest conversation about the work and people of Fred Hutch. In these meetings, we uncovered the core of the brand—not to mention its new tagline, Cures Start Here, articulated by one of Fred Hutch’s researchers in the midst of a town hall session.

We sought to create an updated visual identity that would better capture the energy, passion and progressive drive of the brand. The new mark evokes both the spirit and science of true discovery, abstractly referencing both the moment of inflection when something new is uncovered or created, and the larger search for cures.