Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) has dropped the hyphen that had been in its name ("Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center"). The overall look of the logo has also been updated.
Avice Meehan, MSKCC's Chief Communications Officer, explained in an interview that the simplified design is better suited for web and digital communications than the previous logo-"because it had so much detail, it didn't work very well on the web." The updated version keeps the same elements the institution has had as part of its visual identity since its founding in 1884 (the oval, arrow, and crossbars that form a shield), she noted. And retaining the founding date was important, she added. "We know from research we've done that it means a great deal to many people that we have had one mission and one focus for a very long time. And that's the conquest of cancer."
The hyphen though, she added has actually "come and gone over the years"-and it was not part of the name when the cancer center moved to its current location on York Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan in 1939.
The updates were made "very collaboratively," Meehan said. Senior leadership, physicians, the Board, and the communications team all had input-though the impetus to begin the update came from the Boards of Overseers and Managers (MSKCC's board of trustees), she said: "the very highest levels of the organization." The new logo took effect earlier this year, but will continue to be rolled out over the next two years to complete updates to all of the institution's signage, stationery, and print materials, Meehan said.
After OT tweeted the early online version of this item on March 20, MSKCC tweeted back: "Our surgeons performed the radical hyphenectomy last month."