If you’ve watched the movie The Wizard of Oz, you’re familiar with this famous comment made by Dorothy to her pet dog Toto. As you look at the REI website and some of our new materials, you may be having a similar feeling … “This doesn’t look like REI anymore.” And you are partially right! REI has a new logo, new corporate colors, and even a new font. In other words, our brand has changed. For example, take a look at our new logo. Previously it was a map of the world. Now, it is a globe. And because our work is focused on Asia and Africa, that part of the globe is highlighted. A new circle around the globe represents “resource exchange” … resources flowing from one part of the world to another, and back again.
Our look has changed, but have no fear, nothing else has. We are still “building people to building nations.” As Florence Fong, one of our staff from Singapore, and also a medical social worker at Phu San Hanoi Hospital, recently wrote, “What we are seeking to do is develop the health care system in a more holistic manner—helping people physically, yes, but also psychologically, socially, and spiritually. Recognizing people’s needs in their entirety drives our intervention.”
