Amazon.com
In 1997, I was hired as the first Junior Designer at Amazon.com, then known as "Earth's Biggest Bookstore."
Along with the Art Director and one other designer, I illustrated and designed a vast array of interfaces in Photoshop and/or Illustrator, handed them off to the web developers, and began the back-and-forth of iterations with senior management.
At some point in the whirlwind, I was promoted to Designer. There was not yet anything resembling a usability team, so that responsibility was keenly felt by designers and the editorial staff.
I designed this (fabulously dated) home page mockup for the companywide meeting where Jeff Bezos unveiled the Music store. However, it was decided at the last minute that it was just too bold to make Books and Music equally weighted. Could the world accept us as more than just a bookstore? Oh, the suspense! We ended up launching Books and Music tabs with no Home tab, and defaulted to the Books page to ease the transition.
Roles: Junior Designer, Designer, Senior Designer, Design Manager
Here is a partial list of project launches I worked on. (I would never have remembered all of these, but I found a trove of old notebooks recently!)
Advantage Program
Merchandising Resource Center
Megadeals
Associates Network
Help Desk
Join Our Staff
Award Winners
Amazon Kids
Print Identity (business cards, letterhead, etc.)
Shopping Cart/Order Pipeline
Investor Relations
Gift Services/Your Account
Wish List
One-Click Dropdown
Music launch
Shop The Web/Universal Product Finder
By 1999, we had hired a small team of designers, many of whom now hold patents. I was promoted to Senior Designer after launching my first store, Kitchen.
Kitchen launch
Gourmet launch
Centralization of Home Design
I proposed centralizing Design to improve consistency. The rate of store launches was increasing exponentially, and teams had no accountability to each other for features or look and feel. The site was chaos. Layers of ‘tabs’ were being added without any plan for a scalable design. I became Design Manager for Home, and then all Hardlines.
Housewares launch
Lawn & Patio launch
Amazon Buyer Information System (ABIS)
Further centralized Retail Design and launched Computers, Software, Video Games, Toys, Baby, Wireless, Consumer Electronics, Sporting Goods, Jewelry & Watches, Musical Instruments, Health & Beauty, Office Products
Design request processes (iBase)
Brand Stores
Merchants@/Merchants dot com (partnership sites)
Designer Core Competencies/Designer Skills Matrix
“Best of Breed” and Design-Driven Projects
By the time I left Amazon to start my own business in 2005 (see previous post), I was one of two Design Managers for Worldwide Retail & Marketing, with a team of Senior Designers and Design Managers.
