I’d like to tell you about a time when I personally presented to Jeff Bezos and spectacularly failed.
It happened in 1997, while working as a VERY junior designer at Seattle-based Hornall Anderson. I was given my first solo brand Identity assignment to re-brand a little company called Amazon.com. This was the beginning of the internet, “.com” era, where deliriously slow 33.6Kbps dial up modems were fastest way to access the information super highway.
The principal of my firm was going out of town on a much needed vacation. Before he left, he orally briefed me, along with our head of marketing. Back in 1997 – Amazon sold books online – and only books. I was briefed on the history of the current logo (an “A” with a windy shape in its center) - which conceptually tied it to the origin and meaning of the name – The worlds biggest river in South America. It was also mentioned that they wanted to loose the river idea. Another point made but not defined - the company would be bigger than just selling books someday, but given no vision or insights as to what that meant, or looked like. Hindsight is 20/20 now, but back then, online retail was practically non-existent, and who could of imagined what the future looked like? Well, Jeff knew.
Excited for my first real assignment, I feverishly sketched many ideas for logos. Most of which pertained to the basis to what they sold… books splayed open to replace the “A” in the name. Dog-eared letterforms resembling page corners, People reading books. Books endlessly stacked. Books in infinity perspective, Books, books, books. Our time was fast, with only a week to present, there was formal internal creative reviews or any collaboration with other directors designers, or strategists.
The big day came to present. Our main conference room was where we hosted the presentation. Jeff came in. He had hair back then, and pleated pants along with his infectious laugh. Our head of marketing also attended sporting a glorious blonde Ron Burgundy mustache. Somewhat exausted in my efforts to over deliver many solutions, I did my best to walk Jeff through my work, and first client-facing, lead presentation. The ideas were organized in concept groupings, all hand sketched in combinations of pencil and black Sharpie. There were easily a hundred options of logo ideas. Logos of books, books, books and more books – all taped to an industrial metal garage door, which served as a wall, and a design statement to our unconventional office style, lovingly coined by the owners as “cape-cod, industrial, chic”. Jeff was so approachable, kind, thoughtful, and particularly patient as he listened me describe the ideas. When done, his pause was followed by these words – “I’m not sure you all understand the assignment, we are going to be bigger than books.” The project ended that day.
My company had a very supportive culture of learning. We either WON together, or FAILED together, which created a safe space for us to be brave, take chances and be free-thinkers when developing creative solutions. This was no band-aid to the gutting. I still felt I failed Jeff, my company and myself as a designer. I felt that way because I did fail, all of them. Scars leave marks, and in this instance they came in the in the form of Kintsugi-life learnings. Messy lessons that would beautifully influence and transform my career trajectory as a designer, a strategic-thinker and creative director.
Be properly briefed by meeting with the client – to ask questions, have a dialog and fully understand the vision of the company
The first creative deliverable to the client should be in the form of a written Creative Brief, not designed content
Concepts drive all design solutions
Turner Duckworth years later to create the Iconic A-> Z smile, a own able and fresh concept that captures the breadth of what Amazon offers, and the customer satisfaction they obsessively strive for.
25 years later I’d like to say, thanks Jeff Bezos for letting me fail fast, and learn, then apply those learnings to everything I have worked on from that moment on. Deliver creative excellence!
In the future, I will be sharing more stories like this, as I hold so many in my mind, where they serve as nostalgic memories. I believe they should be more widely shared, so others can hear and learn from them too. Storytelling is traditionally how humankind has passed down learnings and traditions, to those younger, so they can be more set up for survival and success in their lives. This is what I have, and can give.