Switching things up

If you’re familiar with MYAN, you may have noticed we have a brand new look, and a very different website.

This has been a big change for us! We think it’s important to explain some of the reasons behind our choices, and why we felt it was time for a shift. We’ll walk through some of our decision-making process and why we think the new MYAN look is the best representation of our organization. We hope you enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at the new face of MYAN!

A New Website

For those of you who have worked with us before, you may remember our old, baby-blue-and-orange colored website. It was difficult to navigate, looked VERY outdated and no longer reflected the direction we are heading as an organization. To top it all off, it was so old that we could no longer update it!

We want a website that can serve as a hub for our network. A place where we can post resources, network news, podcasts and success stories for our friends all over the state. Since we have put in so much work building a better website, we thought it was a perfect opportunity to update our colors and logo as well.

The Colors

One of the first big changes you might notice is our new color scheme! We spent A LOT of time thinking about what colors made sense for MYAN.

The Blues

The color blue is often associated with “trust,” which is why it’s one of the most popular color choices for corporate logos. When thinking about youth engagement, we know that building trust is crucial to making positive connections with young people. Blue is also used heavily by many public health organizations, who our work frequently intersects with. We ended up shifting our original blues towards green, as a nod to our beautiful state.

The Warm Colors

So, if the blues represent the adults in our network, the warm colors represent young people. MYAN works with so many passionate and lively young people, and we wanted colors that keep them central to our identity. We settled on a passionate but serious looking red-orange, a lively and youthful true orange and a hopeful, optimistic yellow.

What’s with all the triangles?

There’s a good reason for all of the triangles, too! Triangles naturally suggest a direction—they carry a sense of movement and dynamism that describes what youth leadership looks like.

Triangles are also the most basic representation of a network. Three points, all connected to one another. We also loved how triangles can connect to each other, creating a network of networks. We learned that computer graphics, like the kind used in video games and big budget films, are built from networks of millions of tiny triangles that define the shapes of the images we see—a perfect represent of MYAN’s mission.

The Logo

Our new logo is built on two triangles overlapping. Together, they create a third triangle; bright orange and pointed skyward. This is a great representation of our vision—young people and adults working together to build better and brighter communities.

It also doesn’t hurt that the shapes combine to form an “M”!

Looking to the future

We hope you enjoyed this dive into some of the reasons behind our new look! We know you will love it as much as we do. We can’t wait to bring you the very best in positive youth development and youth leadership in the months and years to come!