When the word Amazon is mentioned, what comes to mind? An online book store? Much more than that, this online store has experienced massive growth from a juvenile book store to gaining a global online presence where you can virtually shop for anything you want right from the comfort of your home. Amazon has taken giant strides through its innovative strategies over the years to influence the online community.
The brand’s logo was not left out of this huge transformation either. Beyond the written words in the logo design, a mental picture of the totality of the services provided by this brand has been successfully created in the mind of every individual viewing the design. With the aid of the brand logo.
Meaning and history
Amazon’s history remains outstanding among all other fascinating brands. This humongous retail business has immensely changed the world of commerce with its captivating story. What emerged as a mini online book store in 1994 is now ranked as the fourth World’s most valuable online store? ‘’Cadabra’’ was the original name of the company. This name barely survived 365 days, after which Jeff Bezos – the founder noticed its similarity with the word ‘’cadaver’’.
The exponential growth experienced as a result of the company’s approach of directing its funds into growth and expansion raised its level to achieve a remarkable profit of about $5 million margins in the year 2001 with a profit. Ever since Amazon has experienced a steady increase.
This increase is also reflected in its logo designs over the years till this present day. The logo designs have consistently told the story of its versatility in providing all sorts of goods ranging from household tools to electrical gadgets and a lot more.
What does Amazo Logo Mean?
In time past amazon has used different designs for their logo. The new design represents what the company stands for in term of the services they provide. They literally sell everything, just name it. And the arrow under the spelled-out words represents a smile which depicts the customer’s facial expression after purchase of goods from the online store.
The different color choice in the logo design is also very important. The color black symbolizes supremacy, elegance, and dominance. And the orange color symbolizes happiness and pride.
Initially, the smile and arrow designs mean the company is ever ready to serve its customers with all excitement. But presently the smile and arrow which begins under the letter A and terminates under the letter Z expresses the vast scope of the amazon online store as a place where you can shop for everything and anything.
How Was the Amazon logo created?
A brand’s logo design creates a very strong visual connection between a brand and its customers. It communicates the goal, purpose, and vision of a brand at a glance. Therefore, so much thought and effort should be put into its design. knowing this, the founder of Amazon web store, Jeff Bezos had Turner Duckworth on his team from the inception of her logo creation to come up with fascinating logo designs. The first design was a letter ‘A’ enclosed with a flowing river in the middle.
This design was upgraded in 1997 to a more exclusive one “amazon.com” with the motto “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore”. The black serif font was found suitable for this particular design.
In the following year -1998, the warm orange line facing down was adopted which is currently facing up. Amazon introduced another logo design that portrays a smile with the orange line starting from A and terminating on the letter Z was adopted in the year 2000. Shortly after then, Jeff Bezos attended a logo creation-related meeting. Which enabled him to endorse the logo design with the skills and knowledge he acquired during the meeting. Endorsing his brand logo himself helped to minimize cost.
His team member Turner Duckworth suggested that only the orange smiley arrow should be used on the brand’s packaging boxes to further manage the company’s funds. In the long run, Amazon’s package boxes effectively communicated the happy customer feeling on delivery to her customer.
The simplicity and yet captivating message on these package boxes mark a unique milestone achievement in the branding of this global webstore.
Who Designed the Amazon’s Logo?
Following the Amazon trend of logo transition, there have been three distinct emphases in time past. But none of the first two stood the test of time. The brand’s first logo is the word Amazon.com written with black font, the letter’’ O’’ was boldened with yellow font color. Not long after, this logo was changed to the letters underlined with a straight orange line very close to the written letters.
Just above Amazon.com, the words ‘’music, books, and more’’ were written with the faint grey font. This design was in use until Jeff Bezos decided to adopt a new one in the year 2000.
Amazon has remained ‘’the giant of E-commerce’’ and the powerhouse behind different technological innovations worldwide. Some of these innovations include the use of drones for goods delivery simultaneously with the brand’s voice-activated personal assistant, Amazon Alexa, and a lot more.
Through all these logo transitions in time past, Turner Duckworth has tirelessly worked with Bezos in Amazon’s logo creation.
What Color is the Amazon Logo?
Amazon as a brand has a number of color combinations based on different usage. For the purpose of this article, we would consider the brand’s logo color. The logo design with the codes HEX and RGB has two major colors which are the Gamboge (#FF9900) and Black (#000000).
The above-mentioned code color mix was discovered by user Keshav Naidu. If you are wondering if gamboge is a color. Affirmatively it is. Gamboge is a sunny yellow color. It could also be referred to as yellow-orange (i.e. yellow with a tone of orange resulting in a warm yellow color).
Another fascinating fact about the Amazon logo color is its uniqueness to the brand. Often times when you see this color combination, the brand name ‘’Amazon’’ comes to mind, playing a great role in marketing and brand promotion.
Logo Evolution – From old the the lates
Amazon emerged in July 1994 by its founder Jeff Bezos, in Bellevue Washington. A year later it became officially recognized as a website renowned for its sole sales of books. Nevertheless, the founder has a bigger vision for this brand. Right from its inception, Bezos wanted this online store to trade in all kinds of goods. Amazon kicked off and functioned within the four walls of Jeff Bezos’ garage. Like every other growing business, Amazon faced a lot of challenges in its early stage.
Within the first few weeks of the business, the ding-dong sound from the bell to notify an order was very fascinating and everyone would stick around to find out who made the order and where it was coming from. But today that young striving business has become the king of e-commerce, selling all kinds of goods: jewelry, furniture, software, toys, and so on.
Remarkable heights have been achieved by this brand from the juvenile local business to a global technology company vastly skilled in e-commerce, digital marketing, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. Amazon is one of the top four ranked digital brands, with the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Apple. With her innovative ideas, it has developed various technology products and services.
Some of which are the distribution of downloads and streaming of visuals and audio-visuals music, and audiobooks through the Amazon prime video service, Amazon Music, and Audible subsidiaries. Over the years A Pub- Amazon publisher (Amazon’s publishing arm) has been birthed alongside other electronic appliances for consumer’s immediate usage. The brand’s logo wasn’t left out of this remarkable evolution as well.
Amazon’s logo experienced a simultaneous exponential increase with the business growth. From the inception of the business name ‘’Cadabra’’, down to the new logo branding with the smiling arrow. Although the reason this globally known brand has this particular design as its logo remains concealed. It remains an amusing and catchy label that would always stick with everyone that comes in contact with it.
Being aware of the time and increasing demand of customers are very important factors in the growth and development of any brand. Amazon understood this and it was the beginning of her innovative evolution in business and logo design. Always trying to meet her customer’s needs, and with no doubt, this evolution is reflected in her logo design.
Below, we will highlight the reasons for the evolution of Amazon’s logo and the benefits the company gained as a result of these decisions made.
1994-1997 – Amazon’s River
The founding name of this online webstore was ‘’Cadabra’’ in 1994. It did not thrive for a long time because of its close association with the word ‘’Cadaver’’ which did not effectively communicate the goals of the business.
Afterward, the River was adopted because a brand logo could easily be developed from the name. Jeff Bezos walked up to Turner Duckworth and asked him to design the logo. He inserted the picture of the Amazon river as a trademark with a dominant blue color. As at that time that was the best design the brand ever had. It had the motto: ‘’Earth’s Biggest Bookstore’’.
But the blue color of the river blended with the prints of the brand’s logo, making it quite difficult to read and make this design available in print. This design looked more like an amateur’s work. Soon enough the marketing department of the company realized there was an issue with the design as it did not clearly communicate the purpose of the company.
1997- 1998 – Years of Search
Using a river as a trademark became very controversial and anonymous. To effectively communicate the brand’s goals and purpose a more definite and catchier logo needs to be designed to make it stand out from other logo designs. During this phase of development, Amazon experienced a consistent increase in growth in the e-commerce sector from just selling books online to selling different products. Hence a more vivid logo ought to be created to give the brand a more remarkable trademark in the pool of other competing brands.
amazon.com – Earth’s Biggest Bookstore (Early 1998)
This particular logo was a huge transition from the previous one but still needed to be rebranded. It still had an anonymous look. This new design carried the brand’s name and its motto which was gradually losing importance due to the increasing growth of the brand and its present versatility. The logo design was in the ‘’typeface’’ format. To adequately pass across the company’s goals, rebranding was necessary.
1998 – The biggest ‘’O’’
In an attempt to rebrand the former typeface logo, Amazon introduced a big ring in the writing of the brand’s name to replace the letter O. In this design the motto has been completely eliminated, which was actually a fresh start. Regardless the logo still remained anonymous- not yet defined, because the big ring that replaced the letter O didn’t have an exact message as related to the brand’s purpose. It definitely brought a spark to the spelled-out brand name, and highlighted the beauty in using the brand’s name for its logo but still needed to be rebranded.
1998-early 2000 – Warm orange underline
In this phase of Amazon’s logo evolution, the big O didn’t make it past early 2000. Eventually, the brand decided to go for the lowercase letters. It was more customer-friendly and prevented the misspelling of the brand name that has become rampant as a result of the big O that was introduced in the previous year. This present logo brand accompanied by the warm orange color underlined very close to the brand’s name was more appealing and welcoming to the customers. The warm gesture of the orange underline was the peak of this design and it was all that mattered in this logo transition era.
2000 to early 2012 – Smiling
After years of consistent rebranding, Amazon was able to come up with a logo that effectively communicated the brand’s purpose and goals. It is the advent of a smiling arrow pointing from A to Z. The direction of the arrow showed and encompassed the broad scope of Amazon as not just an online book store, but as an online store where you can get the A to Z of your daily needs. At this phase of the brand’s logo evolution, the brand’s color was fully established as black and orange and the other adjustments were easily reinforced.
The black color depicts the brand’s stability while the warm orange color speaks in a volume of the exceptional customer services the brand offers. Beyond the services offered by Amazon, the brand was able to connect with her customer’s emotions with the smiley arrow in the logo.
This logo evolution was able to stir up the purchase action in its customer every time they come in contact with it. This level of achievement as a brand is quite remarkable and commendable.
The logo design from the previous evolution era in the year 2000 is slightly similar to the transition that took place in 2002. The broad distinction between the two eras is the addition of the motto ‘’and you’re done’’ at the down right corner of the logo. This logo design was in use for a very long time until the motto and the dot com were removed in the next evolution era for simplicity and a more precise logo design.
2012 to present-day – No more ‘’.com’’
In this era of logo transition simplicity and precision is achieved in the Amazon brand by removing the motto and the ‘’.com’’ attached to the logo. Amazon has become an independent entity and is globally recognized with a vast presence on the internet and hence can no longer be limited with any further attachment. Amazon’s present-day logo design is a representation of all that the brand has accomplished over the years. It has grown so big and is now more than just an online webstore by developing its delivery technology in form of drones and sponsoring TV shows.
Through these series of transitions Amazon’s logo has undergone, it is clearly impossible to avoid logo rebranding in a developing brand or business. This rebranding can be aimed at different motives.
The latest interpretation of the logo has deep symbolic meaning as it is more than just a sign. This is a whole philosophy, based on Bezos’ conceptual vision. To emphasize the original position,
It could be geared at improving the scope of the business, influencing the customer’s emotions, or bringing a good feeling mood to the customer. Whatever the case might be, rebranding should be considered in the growth and development of a striving brand.
Interesting Facts about Amazon Fresh logo
The letter ’O’’ that is replaced with a brightly colored fruit in the logo shows that the products are fresh and the green color of the word Fresh in the Amazon fresh logo depicts agriculture. Hence showing that all the agricultural produce from Amazon fresh is freshly gotten from the farm.
Interesting Facts about Amazon Music logo
In Amazon music logo the smiley arrow is blue as well as the word Music has its letters written in the color blue. At a glance, it shows that everyone visiting the website will experience a cool, refreshing, and inspirational atmosphere as they connect with Amazon music.
Interesting Facts about Amazon Web Service logo
The warm orange color of the smiling arrow shows that the customers visiting the web service provider would experience a warm reception.
Interesting Facts about Amazon Kindle logo
In this logo design, the warm orange color of the word Kindle and the smiley arrow shows the happy feeling mode every e-reader will experience as they explore this website.
FAQ:
Why did Amazon change its logo?
Amazon is always looking for new ways to make her customer happy. And once the Amazon’s logo was viewed to resemble the face of Adolf Hitler, a historical figure it was very hard for people to unsee this fact. Hence the logo had to be changed.
What was Amazon’s original logo?
The brand’s original logo was the word Amazon.com written out in a black font color with a bigger yellow font used for the letter ‘’O’’
What is Amazon’s original slogan?
The company has its original slogan be ‘’Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History.’’
Where did the name Amazon originate?
The name Amazon was gotten from and named after the largest river in the world.
What type of font does Amazon use?
Amazon has used various kinds of fonts in time past based on the different eras of logo evolution. In the present-day logo, the Officina sans Bold font is still in use. While the Amazon. com’s website uses Amazon Ember Regular and Italics for all written text. However, the font may revert to Arial or Times New Roman.
Is the Amazon arrow trademark?
Yes, the smiley arrow is trademarked by Amazon.
Conclusion
Amazon’s logo and its consistent evolution within the past decades have shown how important a brand’s logo is in the growth and development of the brand. Amazon logo has also set an example of the high relevance a logo design posse in effectively communicating the purpose of a brand or business. Beyond the service provided, the Amazon logo efficiently connected with its customer’s emotions leaving them with a happy feeling mood every time a purchase is made.