New Face, Same Commitment
The organization you have known since its founding as the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation has a new name, a new logo and a new look! Starting today, we are Myotonic, with a fresh new logo and brand to better express who we are as a community and an organization, differentiate ourselves from other organizations in the rare disease arena and drive more visibility and connection to myotonic dystrophy.
We want to be top-of-mind with important stakeholders, including families living with myotonic dystrophy and professionals who work on behalf of our community, from clinicians to researchers, drug developers and federal agencies.
Why We Did It - Rebranding Project Goals
Why did Myotonic undertake this project and why now? It was time to:
- Raise visibility for myotonic dystrophy
- Inspire everyone in the myotonic dystrophy community to share in a vision we are proud of
- Better express what we stand for and what makes us great
- Be understood as uniquely different from other organizations
What Was Working
We launched this rebranding effort by talking to all of you, our family members and professionals, and asking for your input. You had great, and pretty consistent, things to say about the organization: “Wonderful patient organization with an active interest in care, education and research aimed at finding a cure for DM." "Work is driven by strategy, metrics and impact statements.” "The go-to place for all things regarding myotonic dystrophy.” "Always seem to be on the front edge in policy and research.” "Passionate about the cause, strong community and dedicated staff.” "It’s run very well. Period.” "Small but mighty!"
What Needed Fixing
You also gave us important feedback on what could be improved:
- The MDF brand felt somewhat inaccessible and lacked energy and emotion
- It didn’t convey a strong sense of purpose, vision or focus
- It was visually inconsistent across the photography, typography and colors we used
- The website was dense and difficult to navigate
- MDF’s impact on Care and a Cure was buried
How We Built the New Brand
You also shared what inspires you about the organization, and how you’d describe MDF’s personality and character, using words such as “dynamic”, “trusted”, “advocate”, “familial”, “positive”, “focused” and “determined”. That led us to key opportunities for the organization going forward:
- Turn community into family: family is at the heart of everything we do, and myotonic dystrophy is a family disease
- Make the complex simple: bring clarity and simplicity to the disease and the organization’s role
- Use facts and data to tell stories of progress: better describe what we are doing and the progress we are all celebrating
- Create a simple, memorable name: make it warm, human, approachable and antithetical to the disease
Voila! Myotonic
We took all this feedback and worked with another small but mighty organization, A Line Studio, to rethink our face, voice and branding to better align with how you see us as an organization and what we are here to accomplish. We built off the “my” in “myotonic” to bring more connection to our work, and embraced the concept of our family. Hence the tag lines: “Myotonic. My Hope. My Family. My Support. My Care. My Cure. My Cause.” Hopefully you’ll see all of this and more as you explore the new brand. Be sure to cruise around the website, and let us know what you think.