Overview
Majka Burhardt is a professional climber, longtime Patagonia ambassador, author of three books, filmmaker, mother of twins, and founder and CEO of Legado and Thriving Futures, working on climate justice across three continents. Over three decades, her work has grown across climbing, conservation, writing, filmmaking, speaking and leadership.
Her existing digital presence held an enormous body of work, much of it organized around individual roles and moments in time. The opportunity was to uncover the thread connecting it all and create a current digital home where Majka's different worlds could naturally sit alongside each other. A place built for credibility and legacy, not for selling.
The project grew from an initial brand exploration into a complete personal brand platform spanning strategy, voice, visual identity, LinkedIn, website and Substack. The central idea became both the strategy and the organizing principle for everything that followed: Nothing is separate.
Process
Finding the throughline
I started with an observe → analyze → apply approach, working through Majka's writing, interviews, talks, existing website and discovery questionnaire. The exploration surfaced Relatable Badass, two words Majka had used about herself, as the core brand concept, and revealed the themes connecting climbing, motherhood, leadership, writing and activism. That became the foundation for a personal brand built around the whole person, with each part adding context and depth to the others.
Giving the voice a system
Majka already had a distinctive voice across years of essays, books and interviews. I mapped it into three natural registers, Memoir, Builder and Activist, along with her signature lines and the things she would never say, and used them to shape her messaging, bios and tone of voice. The system was first applied to a complete LinkedIn refresh, then carried through the website and everything that followed.
Curating three decades of work
I audited 200 existing pieces of content and worked with Majka to shape them into a focused body of work. A curated selection of projects became the core collection, organized through three lenses: On the Mountains, On Motherhood and On the World. This structure gives books, films, expeditions, essays and organizational work a shared context, while the About page brings key milestones together in one narrative timeline.
Translating the strategy into design
The visual direction stays intentionally restrained, letting photography and film carry the story. Movement runs throughout the experience, from the video-led homepage to image sequences combining stills and footage.
The identity grows from the same idea. The M of the new logo is shaped as a mountain range and filled with a gradient that moves from sunlit orange to icy blue: warmth and energy on one side, ice on the other, held together in a single mark. Understated yet instantly recognizable.
Building the digital home
I designed and built the website in Framer around four simple destinations: Home, About, Work and Contact, with a CMS-driven Work section that can keep growing over time.
Result
Majka’s new digital presence brings climbing, motherhood, writing, leadership and climate work into one connected narrative. Three decades of work are now easier to explore, while the structure leaves plenty of room for new projects, writing and whatever comes next.
And maybe that is the bigger idea behind the whole project: everyone has a “more,” as Majka would say. She just happens to have a particularly extraordinary amount of it. My goal wasn’t to invent something new, but to listen carefully, connect the dots, and reflect back the person who was already there.
200
pieces of existing content reviewed and curated
13
selected works, in a collection built to keep growing
1
whole person, no boxes
