Our new logo and brand identity: your questions answered

Yorkshire Cancer Research has today launched a fresh new look as it continues its mission to save 2000 lives each year in Yorkshire. Juliet Glendinning, Director of Brand and Relationships, answers your questions about the charity and its brand update.
 

What has been announced?

Today we have announced an update of our logo and brand identity. Following extensive research involving supporters and people affected by cancer, the charity has created a stronger, clearer identity to help increase its recognition and deliver more impact for those living in the region.
 

What has changed?

The updated logo now highlights three important aspects of the charity’s work:

• Research: The charity saves lives through research by working with leading cancer experts to make life-changing breakthroughs. The word ‘research’ is now a stronger part of the identity, underlining this vital aspect of the charity’s work.
   
• Yorkshire: The rose is now more clearly the Yorkshire rose, showing the charity’s dedication to the region. It is shown against a blue background that is closer to that associated with Yorkshire and the Yorkshire rose.
   
• Coming Together: Most importantly, the charity’s focus is upon people; upon individuals and communities, helping them to keep cancer-free or to receive the earliest and best treatment if not. The charity’s life-saving work is only possible through individuals coming together to make it happen. We have therefore represented people coming together to make up the rose.

Alongside our visual identity, the language we use is going to be clearer and more compelling - highlighting who we are and why we exist; to give Yorkshire more life to live.

We remain Yorkshire Cancer Research. The way we look may have changed but our name and our commitment remain the same. We remain firmly about saving lives in Yorkshire, from cancer, through research.
 

Why has the charity made this change?

We want to demonstrate we are a modern, proudly Yorkshire charity and convey who we are and why we exist – to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer across the region and have the biggest possible impact.

Members of our team talked to people living with cancer, their carers, volunteers, donors, researchers, employees and members of our Board of Trustees to understand how they felt about our brand and identity.

Feedback showed that with the introduction of a more recognisable and memorable brand symbol, people would be more easily able to differentiate between Yorkshire Cancer Research and other organisations and be far more likely to remember and support it – ultimately helping to provide the vital funding required to stop people needlessly dying from cancer in our region and saving countless families from distress and heartbreak.

Why have you done this now?

The brand refresh marks a key step in the delivery of the charity’s strategy to reach 2000 fewer cancer deaths a year in Yorkshire by 2025.

Analysis demonstrates that people in Yorkshire are more likely to get cancer and less likely to survive it than in other areas in England, and that there is also significant variation within Yorkshire across a range of measures including incidence, mortality, survival, and participation in screening.

To reach its goal of 2000 fewer deaths a year, the charity is committed to funding £10 million of world-leading research each year to support experts and leading researchers who pioneer early cancer diagnosis and discover new and better treatments for people with cancer. 

Over the last five years, the charity has been on a journey to ensure the research it funds is having an impact right here, right now for people at risk of and experiencing cancer in Yorkshire. This has resulted in thousands more people being enrolled in clinical trials and hundreds of lives saved across Yorkshire.

Following delays in diagnosis and treatment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, raising funds to bring innovative prevention and diagnosis programmes to the region, as well as increasing the number of clinical trials in the region, has become even more important. It is essential that we come together to not only get cancer services in Yorkshire back to normal but make them better than ever before.

We now need a brand symbol that reflects our ambitions for Yorkshire and enables the charity to continue the progress it has made as we begin to recover.

Why is the brand identity so important?

The brand represents the charity, its purpose and what it stands for. The logo is the brand symbol. It differentiates Yorkshire Cancer Research from other organisations and helps make the brand both recognisable and memorable. This helps attract supporters who want to see advancements in cancer research. And it helps attract the funds needed to achieve this.
 

Thank you to everyone who supports Yorkshire Cancer Research for their dedication and commitment. We are excited to start this new chapter with you. Together we are saving lives.