A STUDY ABOUT LOGO OF ‘AMAZON’

By:- SUNNY(MBA-1st Semester)

Amazon was founded on July 5, 1994, in Seattle, by Jeff
Bezos, and it was an online marketplace for books back
then. Now, the marketplace has hugely expanded,
covering almost all product categories.
The company owns multiple subsidiaries, such as
Amazon Web Services (cloud computing), Kuiper
Systems (satellite Internet), Zoox (autonomous
vehicles), and Amazon Lab126 (computer hardware
R&D). The company is today the largest online retailer
and marketplace in the world.
 Brand Amazon got its name from the world’s longest
river Amazon. Its first logo in 1995 had the river as the
main feature. The letter A of the brand name formed a
trapezoid. A long and wide white curve in the middle of
the letter represents the river.
Turner Duckworth designed this old Amazon logo with
a stylized ‘A,’ which was the chief element of the design.
The letter in black also symbolized the South American
river’s contours.
 1997: The e-commerce giant redesigned its logo with
some changes in response to the criticism it received.
This time, it had some details that represented the
company’s growth.
The logo was still black and white but had a zebra
pattern inside the letter A. The patterns looked like tree
branches, representing the company’s expansion. But
the company retained the wordmark ‘amazon.com’ at
the bottom of the logo’s base. The wordmark also was
there in anticipation of the dot-com hype in those days.
 By 1998, the company had realized that the letter ‘A’ with the river inside the logo was
not good enough to express its brand message fully to the new target customers. The
world was switching fast to dot.com digitally, with everyone talking about it. Considering
that, the company went for a complete overhauling of the logo.
So, initially, it settled for an ‘amazon.com’ wordmark logo and created its three
versions. The Amazon logo change had the brand name in a simple serif typeface. The
tagline ‘Earth’s Biggest Bookstore’ was incorporated underneath the brand name.
But this logo also could not stay for long, and a newer version replaced it. This time,
‘amazon.com’ appeared in upper-case letters to convey the brand’s dominance. Its key
attraction was the big yellow letter ‘O’ of the name. The company got rid of the tagline.
This design continued to represent the company for several months.
Then, by the end of the year, there was a new wordmark with a yellow swish
underneath. The swish was slightly arched and later became the basis for today’s smiley
company design. Also, the company name appeared in the Officina Sans typeface. The
company name ‘Amazon’ appeared in bolder font to produce the contrast for easier
visibility, while the ‘.com’ part was lighter.
The company developed a new Wordmark logo design in 2000
that continues to be the brand’s identity. So, the wordmark
got slightly modified with the previous yellow bridge-like
curve turned into an arrow that looked like a smile.
This time, the designers used the yellow swoosh to connect
the letter ‘a to ‘z’, conveying the brand message that the
company can buy everything from the store. It signaled the
wide variety of products available for the consumers.
But the smiley arrow also represents the company’s
satisfied customers as they smile after receiving the products
at their doorsteps.
 Amazon has used a logo as its shopping cart symbol for five years. It
featured a brown box that stood for plain packaging. At the top, there was a
blue adhesive strip with toothed edges. But soon, people protested against
this logo as the strip reminded them of the toothbrush style of Adolf Hitler,
the dictator.
Therefore, the company redesigned the Amazon Hitler logo by removing
the uneven edges of the blue strip. Now the blue tape appeared plain
without the edges. It was designed like someone neatly folded it, indicating
the product’s unboxing inside.
After Amazon made the changes in its Amazon app logo,
Amazon’s brand spokesperson explained the move by saying, “Amazon is
always exploring new ways to delight our customers. We designed the new
icon to spark anticipation, excitement, and joy when customers start their
shopping journey on their phone, just as they do when they see our boxes
on their doorstep.”
The company launched Amazon Prime in April 2022 for
those customers who could get free shipping and faster
delivery on paying a monthly fee. The Amazon Prime
Logo includes the old Amazon logo with the smiley
yellow arrow. But it also had ‘Prime’ added by the side
in blue to convey excellence, quickness, and friendly
investment in the brand’s excellent service.