Amazon Prime is the membership program of Amazon.com, Inc., offering shipping benefits, streaming entertainment, and other services under a single subscription. The visual identity of Prime has evolved from a sub-brand of Amazon into a standalone mark, distinguished primarily by a blue color treatment that separates it from the parent company’s signature orange and black.
Design and History
In early 2018, Amazon quietly updated the logos for all of its Prime services, dropping the word “Amazon” from the branding. Amazon Prime became simply Prime, Amazon Prime Video became Prime Video, and Amazon Prime Now became Prime Now. In place of Amazon’s signature orange and yellow, the Prime services uniformly adopted a blue hue, a color that Business Insider described as “Prime blue,” signifying to shoppers that an item qualifies for Prime benefits.[1] The move reflected Prime’s growth to more than 100 million paying members in 2018.[2]
The smile arrow, the curved line beneath the Amazon wordmark that connects the “A” to the “Z,” remained in the Prime identity, though its color shifted from orange to the softer blue.[2] The updated branding appeared across Amazon’s physical touchpoints, including the tape on shipping boxes and mailers.[1]
The Amazon smile logo itself was created by the design agency Turner Duckworth, which pitched the concept directly to Jeff Bezos. According to Turner Duckworth CEO Joanne Chan, the design was chosen in the first meeting, with the smile representing customer service and connecting the A to the Z within the word “Amazon.”[3]
Meaning and Symbolism
The smile arrow in the Amazon wordmark carries a documented dual meaning. Turner Duckworth’s Joanne Chan explained that the smile represents customer service, while the arrow connecting the A to the Z within “Amazon” is an “Easter egg” of “everything from A to Z,” a discovery element that was never touted openly by Amazon.[3]
In the Prime context, the blue color serves a functional role in Amazon’s brand architecture. Business Insider reported that “Prime blue” is the color that signifies to shoppers on Amazon.com that an item is eligible for Prime delivery benefits.[1]
Typography and Design
In February 2023, Pentagram’s Emily Oberman and team developed a brand refresh for Prime Video, the streaming arm of Prime. The identity recast the “dimple-arrow” of the Amazon smile logo into a distinct shape that “conveys movement, momentum and energy as it points the way into the Prime Video rabbit hole.” The brand color is described by Pentagram as a “brilliant and contemporary Prime Blue taken from the Prime palette.”[4]
Pentagram also created a proprietary typeface in collaboration with Lucas Sharp of Sharp Type. Called Prime Video Sharp, it is a customized version of Sharp Grotesk, described as “strong and friendly,” with multiple weights that fit in with the Prime family. The font is designed to accompany dozens of playful symbols dubbed “Iconics,” created by illustrators at Patswerk, which represent various genres and content types.[4]
The 2023 Prime Video refresh was designed to be related to the Prime parent brand while feeling distinctly Prime Video, and it launched alongside a redesigned experience within the Prime Video app.[4]
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