As part of its 120th anniversary, Roswell Park Cancer Institute is reinventing itself. The new name for the Buffalo medical center is Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (RPCCC). The name denotes that it is the only comprehensive cancer treatment center in WNY, which is a point of pride for the community. The logo/branding is the creation of local artist Shasti O’Leary Soudant. The image was guided by the artist’s installation – ‘Wish Field’ – she created for the lobby of Roswell Park’s Scott Bieler Clinical Sciences Center in 2016 (see lead image). The new name, and the new logo, both represent the center’s mission and vision that revolve around the inspirational message of “Unleashing the healing power of hope.” The message has now become the tagline for RPCCC.
“We are a new Roswell Park with new ideas, new energy and new goals,” says center President and CEO Candace S. Johnson, PhD. “We need an identity that speaks to who we are and what we mean to people. And we have that now.”
^RPCCC President and CEO Candace S. Johnson, PhD
The new brand identity, guided by ‘Wish Field’ was inspired by one of O’Leary Soudant’s memories as a child, standing in a field with her mother, as she held onto a dandelion. She recalls blowing the tiny dandelion seeds into the air, as she made a wish. The powerful recollection and imagery translated perfectly to a more collective “wish” that everyone facing the hardships of cancer can relate to. That fleeting childhood moment has now been captured in the center’s new branding initiative.
“You’re looking for hope, something reassuring,” O’Leary Soudant, a cancer survivor, said last year, recalling the fears and concerns she experienced when she was in treatment for lymphoma while living in Colorado in 1999. “I felt it was important that I contribute something that would lend itself to the hopeful, wishful, welcoming aspect of (Roswell Park).”
“The reason that I was so excited (about this project), the reason that I felt such an immense rush, is that Roswell and places like it — these people saved my life. That intensely personal experience of pride that I feel is so much more meaningful just because of who it’s for,” the artist notes in a video revealing the new logo.
“When we listened to feedback from our patients, their family members, our faculty and staff, we kept hearing the word ‘hope’: Hope for the future. Therapies that give me hope. Hope for a cure. Roswell Park gave me hope,” adds Dr. Johnson. “Shasti’s work has been such a beautiful illustration of the ways that hope inspires and connects the whole community around Roswell Park, and we knew Wish Field was the perfect anchor for our rebranding effort.”
Lead image: Wish Field, Shasti’s installation in the Scott Bieler Clinical Sciences Center | Photo: Roswell Park
