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40-something creatives: What should we do next?

Five steps to help determine what we should do for the rest of our lives

Looking at what’s ahead and trying to decide what path to take — Image: Alexander Milo

I get a fair amount of inquiries from my former colleagues and industry friends about what they should do next. They range in age but I’ve been particularly surprised by how many in their late 30s and early 40s reach out to me seeking perspective. And this has increased in the past twelve months noticeably more so than in the previous several years.

Several factors are at play here. A, It’s a function of myself getting older (although I’ve been in denial about this for the past two decades), and B, the creative and technology industries are changing so drastically. The pandemic has accelerated and generative AI is exasperating these changes so much more quickly than anyone anticipated that the future is murkier than ever before.

Many of us have good, established careers and positions in our respective fields and companies. Some of us have or have had “executive director,” “VP,” “managing director,” etc, in our titles. A few of us are or have been even chief ___ officers at very respected companies.

20s, 30s, 40s

We thought we deserved the VP or the Creative Director titles in our 20s. We thought we deserved higher pay. We thought that the grass would be greener on the other side. We thought that there would be work that was meant for us and we were meant for them.

We worked hard. We jumped ship. We got those titles, promotions, and money. We thought that we had more time to figure out what to do with work and life.

And then, as we approach our late 30s and early 40s, one inevitable question seems to creep up on us. It’s a much trickier question to answer than before: What should I do next?

It’s trickier because when we reach our 40s, there aren’t going to be that many “nexts” left in our careers. It’s also more difficult to keep jumping ship in our 40s every two years than in our 20s or even 30s.

This question also weighs heavier on us because “next” could imply “ for the rest of my life.” That’s a daunting thought.

When we were in our 20s, we still had more than 30, or even 40 years to go in our careers. It was ok to not know where we wanted to go in life or not have figured out life. It was ok to change course or to meander. There was a lot of time left “in the rest of my life.”

In our 30s, we encountered opportunities to lead, make more money, and move to new places. Some of us were promoted quickly, quicker than we (ok, I) should have been. We also started raising families and paying mortgages. We also became a little cynical about our industry. But it was ok. We were making good money. There were also starting to be more job options than there used to be. In addition to design firms and agencies, consultancies and in-house agencies started to hire us. And even more money came. With that, our expectations for our own lifestyles rose without us noticing.

As we get older, we collect various financial responsibilities in the forms of families, mortgages, cars, vacations, etc. Some of these aren’t responsibilities but rather, luxuries we bought into and lifestyles we got used to. Work is a job you can quit but family is work you can’t quit. We could technically quit our lifestyles but are we willing? Not so sure.

These financial responsibilities could hold us back. And if we have some wrinkles in life as I do, such as shared custody of kids due to a divorce (another topic to write about if I shed enough of my ego), our professional decision has much, much bigger consequences and implications.

Another realization that we denied for a long time: all of a sudden, the big Five-O is not that far away. As we watch our parents grow older, retire, and become more dependent on us, those futures for ourselves become more real. Yet, in our 40s, we aren’t quite old enough to cruise control our way into the career sunset.

“A creative individual in their 40s” according to Midjourney

Side note: I asked Midjourney to generate an image but was disappointed by the lack of diversity and I didn’t see myself in it. I wasn’t going to use this but I thought I’d share here. AI is grossly biased and that is a problem.

Relevance

Being experienced is a good thing but there are only so many executive or managing director roles to go around. We had the digital chops that everyone craved but that was more than ten years ago. What used to be our differentiator is not only something everyone now has but can offer more cheaply and quickly. Have we become too expensive?

Is this why we are seeing more posts on LinkedIn about “being set free from (insert Big Tech here),” and/or “spending more time with the family,” a recent euphemism as Brian Morrisey of The Rebooting put it in our recent conversation?

In addition, there is economic and technological pressure that could make us redundant or worse, irrelevant.

Does it feel like the pace at which technologies, and therefore, the world around us, move has substantially picked up, compared to two decades ago when we started our careers? Or are we reaching the cognitive threshold of learning new technologies? Do we just not have enough time for ourselves like we used to? Yes.

So, as creatives in our 40s, with all these responsibilities as well as changes around us that can render our creative skills and experiences unnecessary just with a few prompts, what the hell are we supposed to do?

Not knowing is where you start

Most people who reach out to me are quite open about the fact that they don’t know what they want to or should do next. Some even admit that they might be having a professional existential or identity crisis. I was, too.

When I get these inquiries, I tell them first that I can’t tell them what’s right or wrong for them. I don’t think I can nor should I provide the answer to “What should I do next and for the rest of my life?” Instead, I’m happy to share the thought process I went through, where I was/am trying to go, and what to do in life, with a caveat that it may not apply to most people.

My role often is just to have a chat over coffee, ask some questions, and hope that those questions might help them find what’s inside them already.

The same goes for you with this post.

1. Future: Visualizing our paths ahead

As I was reaching my 40s, I started to visualize various possible paths ahead, and here’s what went through my mind about each:

Continue where I was: “I am the chief creative officer of a renowned digital agency and I like my job. I’m proud of what I’ve been able to achieve here. I could continue helping build this company.”
Move to another creative agency: “I’m getting calls from headhunters about a similar job at other agencies. They need some fresh blood to come in and turn things around. I’ve been able to learn about leadership, business, management, and finances here for the last 10 years. I could deploy my skills and experience to help someone else.”
Big Tech: “I’m also getting calls from Googles, Apples, Facebooks of the world. Many of my friends are jumping ship to tech. Money seems also nice. I may be able to retire if I stay for a decade.”
Start my own thing: “I’ve always been curious about what it’s like to start my own company and run it. Also, things are changing around me. I need to evolve and change.”

I do realize that I was fortunate to have these paths as my options.

Paths 1, 2, or 3 felt more secure. They also meant more money and stability at least for the foreseeable future. However, they felt predictable, for better or worse. I could see the next twenty+ years of my career in front of me at whatever company that I would work for. That kind of scared me.

Path 4 was by far the most unpredictable and the least secure. To go from having a paycheck one day to nothing when we have a family to feed in one of the most expensive cities in the world would put a LOT of strain on ourselves if we are the main breadwinner. With this unpredictable path, though, I couldn’t really see what lay ahead. To me, that meant I could potentially carve my own path. That felt exciting.

Then I asked myself the following questions. Not necessarily in this order at the time when I was trying to figure things out but this would be the order in which I recommend you interrogate these questions.

2. Self: “What’s really important to ME?”

As I wondered about the next 10, 20, or more years of my career, I started to make a mental list of things that were important to me.

I want to have a positive impact on the world.
I want to be in more control of my own destiny.
I want to be able to provide a decent life for my family.
Money is nice but it doesn’t buy me happiness.
I like making things. The Work.
I’ve always challenged myself, which led me to places I didn’t know I could go.
When I’m 80 years old, I want to be able to say “I did it.”

I’m making it sound simple here but mind you, this internal debate took place over the course of a couple of years. The decision did become clearer for me after going through this exercise.

By the way, I will say that starting your own company is liberating but it isn’t for everyone. This post is not about that, and perhaps another topic to write about.

After several years of mental meandering, this is the question that I kept asking myself about the rest of my professional life:

“What’s really important to me?”

This is usually the one and the first question that I pose to my former colleagues and industry friends when we chat about their possible futures. We need to ask and keep asking this question ourselves over and over.

3. Place: Where do I want to live?

This was a constant topic of conversation between my wife and I for quite some time. Eventually, we decided New York City (or the vicinity) was the place where we wanted to spend the foreseeable future for both of our respective careers and lines of work we do (my wife is a life career coach), and for our kids and their education/life experience.

Having recruited many people in the US, Europe, and Asia, many people would say geography didn’t matter to them and would follow good work. That’s not true. It always matters greatly even if you don’t have kids. We need to really scrutinize this question and make a decision on this before we make a career decision. If we aren’t happy with where we live, we aren’t going to be happy with where we work.

If we have kids, what kind of education we want to provide for them, particularly for middle and high schools, is a huge factor and you need to settle this topic with our spouse.

This question helps prioritize our life and family decisions and that helps in narrowing our options.

4. Work: What kind of work do I really want to do?

As creatives, we like making stuff: The Work.

The best creatives I respect-and I mean creatives in a wider sense including designers, architects, artists, musicians, writers, builders, developers, etc-are the ones who keep making The Work. I find them inspiring. I also like helping other people do better work. I take joy in seeing others be able to make The Work that they might not have done on their own.

However, it’s possible that we might not see our futures as an extension of the previous two decades of our careers.

I will say that being in our 40s isn’t too late for a career change. That is, as long as we are willing to take roughly two years of a transition period to learn about ourselves and gain new skills. During this period, we need to discuss with our partners, particularly about money, and work together to make ends meet (see below).

Once we go through this transition, the rest of our lives—as individual professionals and as life partners—will be much more liberating and possibly more fulfilling.

5. Money: How much do you really need?

Money is a tricky thing. One of my family members told me in my 30s that I didn’t seem happy as I was making more money. I realized that more money didn’t necessarily give me real happiness.

Also, whenever I made decisions based on or heavily influenced by money, I always regretted my decisions. This was true for both my personal decisions as well as management decisions.

Like Place, it’s something we need to have an honest conversation about and to see eye to eye with our life partner. It can get uncomfortable at times. If not, we will end up paying the price. I did.

Having more money could benefit us in various ways. But be aware that it could also be crippling, especially in our 40s.

To summarize, here are the five steps I went through:

Future: Visualize my possible paths ahead
Self: Ask what’s really important to me
Place: Decide with my partner where to live
Work: Search for joy in The Work or commit to a career transition
Money: Make money work for me, not the other way around

Thanks for reading. Please consider subscribing to my newsletter on Medium or Substack.

Originally published at https://reiinamoto.substack.com.

40-something creatives: What should we do next? was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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Artist update: New tagging limits to reduce tag spam and improve relevance and conversion

The post Artist update: New tagging limits to reduce tag spam and improve relevance and conversion appeared first on Redbubble Blog.

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The single most important skill for a Chief Creative Officer

Creating an impact as a leader isn’t always about doing big things

Image of a chess piece leading the pack — Image: Markus Spiske

Before starting my own company I&CO, I was the Global Chief Creative Officer (Global CCO) of AKQA, an international digital creative agency. I joined the agency back in 2005 (yes, 2005) and spent just a little over a decade there. Prior, I cut my teeth in creative leadership at R/GA, another prominent digital agency, as an Executive Creative Director.

In both situations, I was way too young.

Naturally, I made a lot of mistakes. Some of them were so bad that just thinking about them now makes me want to crawl under a table and hide, even after more than a decade.

“What is the single most important skill for a Chief Creative Officer?”

Carren O’Keefe, a newly appointed CCO at Digitas UK and an old colleague/friend of mine, recently asked me. This is a simple question but not so simple to answer. There are so many skills, qualities, and experiences one should have in order to be a good CCO. Numerous articles, books, videos, classes, and podcasts have been produced on leadership, and quite a few on creative leadership. There’s even an ultimate guide on how to be a Chief Creative Officer on Amazon.

Rei Inamoto at Cannes Lions — Image: Cannes Lions

The thing is, all of them are right. For some. None of them are right for everyone. Ultimately, each person needs to figure out what works for them.

This post is just my view and probably won’t be right or even relevant to most. If it is remotely helpful for just one person, that’s all I could hope for.

When Carren asked me the single most important thing for a Chief Creative Officer, many thoughts raced through my mind. Being able to inspire (obvious), being the best creative in the room (arrogant), being a good presenter (too narrow), being a good mentor (a must), seeing what’s coming (no one knows), etc.

Where I landed was this: Humility.

When I was a couple of years into my tenure at AKQA, I was based in San Francisco. There were about 60 people in the creative department that I was leading at the time there. One day, I was getting coffee in the kitchen and saw a young-ish person I hadn’t met before. “Hi, I’m Rei. Are you new?” I asked.

“Oh, hey, I’m ____,” he replied. I then asked him what he did at the company. After he told me he was a copywriter and had just started a few weeks ago, he asked me the following.

“What do you do here?”

This benign question surprised me. Even offended me a little, if I were honest. My first inner thought was “I am your boss’s boss. Possibly their boss as well. I’m the head of the department you belong to. You should know me.” For a split second, I almost said those words out loud.

How young, insecure, and arrogant I was back then.

Quickly, I thought that would be a douchey move because it would make him feel embarrassed. I managed to stop myself. Instead, I told him that I was one of the designers (which was true as I was/am a designer and did a fair amount of hands-on design work). Instead of blaming the newcomer for not knowing his department head, I realized that I hadn’t done enough to make myself visible to him as the department head, and I should have had enough grasp of my own team to know new joiners.

The following week at the department meeting, I told the team that I would stop by their desks every two weeks to say hello to people, one on one, to get to know each person a little. Every two weeks because I was traveling a fair amount at the time and I knew I wouldn’t be able to commit to doing my rounds every week. By announcing it to the department, it was a type of pledge. This gave me a simple routine that I could follow. Or at least try.

For the following 12 months, while I must admit that I did fall short and wasn’t able to see everyone every two weeks, I stuck to this routine, say 75% of the time. Sometimes, people weren’t at their desks, I was traveling and out of the office too much, or just didn’t make enough time to do this routine.

Rei Inamoto at work in late 2010's. — Image: Ben Cruz

While I’m sure some people didn’t enjoy their boss or (their boss’s boss) checking on them often, to my delight, some people appreciated it more than I thought.

On one visit to someone’s desk—I’ll call him Matt—I noticed he had a digital stickie note on his screen that kept track of which day I came around to his desk. When I pointed that out, Matt said “Oh, yeah” with a slightly devilish grin. He took joy in keeping tabs on his boss.

After one year of doing this, I got to know everyone a little. It gave me a decent grasp of what each person was working on at any given moment. I also believe, perhaps selfishly, that the department got stronger as a team.

There were many lessons I took away from this very simple routine. Most of all, it reminded me of the importance of humility and admitting your fault.

The best way to change the world around you is to start changing the way you behave.

This was a recorded conversation for my podcast “The Creative Mindset.” If you are curious about this and other conversations, please check them out and follow the show wherever you get your podcast:

The single most important skill for a Chief Creative Officer was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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Puma Logo: History And Evolution Of The Iconic Design

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The Puma logo is among the most iconic symbols in the world of sports apparel and footwear. From a simple design to its current outstanding design, the logo has lured audiences and helped the brand establish a solid footprint in the global market. However, it took decades to evolve into the impressive and unique design it is today. Let’s delve into the intriguing journey of its evolution.

As a company grows, it ventures into a broader market targeting different customers. So, a global brand’s logo should reflect its ambitions to target more significant markets. Most businesses, scaling up worldwide, often tweak or redesign their logos.

The Puma logo is an emblem of Puma SE, a German multinational corporation. The global giant designs and manufactures athletic and casual footwear. It also is known for making sports-related apparel and accessories.

With the growth of the company’s business, its logo also had to go through an evolutionary phase to look today as a refined brand symbol. Its logo design is now consistent and has appeared almost the same for years on its sports shoes, shirts, and other apparel. The emblem is inseparable from the company’s branding and marketing campaigns.

A Brief Puma Logo History

Puma is a global brand, and it would be interesting to know how the brand and its emblem grew and evolved over the decade. So, here is the brief Puma logo history.

The Puma label was registered in October 1948 as the company’s trademark. According to the company’s official page, “PUMA has relentlessly pushed sport and culture forward by creating fast products for the world’s fastest athletes. For more than 70 years, we draw strength and credibility from our heritage in sports.”

The company’s founder Rudolf Dassler had first named it ‘RUDA’, the mix of his name’s first two letters. The company dismissed that idea later and adopted the brand name PUMA.

This is because, as per the company’s Facebook page: “Rudolf’s vision was that all of his products would embody the characteristics of a Puma cat: speed, strength, suppleness, endurance, and agility — the same attributes that a successful athlete needs as well.”

1948: The ‘D’ Logo

The show manufacturing company launched its logo first in 1948. It was a design of a leaping Puma cat. Its chief feature was the puma jumping across the large but thinly spaced letter D. The letter stood for the company’s founder Rudolf Dassler.

1959: The Form Strip Logo

But it was in 1968 that the company came up with a logo that conveyed Rudolf’s vision to some extent. It combined a wordmark and picture. This was also when the famous white form strip appeared on shoes and became part of the logo.

1968: The Leaping Puma

In 1968, the company brought its Puma icon back in black, making it a central visual identity of the brand. It was a cleaner design with a sleek, sophisticated leaping puma cat.

During the ‘70s, a bold and enlarged wordmark accompanied the leaping cat. The brand name was in a custom sans serif typeface.

1974: Wordmark And The Cat

In 1974, a slightly different version of the insignia appeared. The leaping Puma cat was on one side of the wordmark this time.

1980 – 1982: The Cat Alone Logo

In 1980, the company removed the wordmark from the remarkable logo. The Puma cat alone represented the brand. Also, it is noticeable that the company uses the cat-alone logo alternatively even today.

1982 – 1988: The Wordmark Is Back With The Cat

The sports shoes and apparel manufacturing giant brought back the wordmark with a slight twist in the 1982 logo. The wordmark had the shade of the famous form strip in white. So, the logo redesign was again a combination of the brand name and the leaping cat. The company kept this mark for eight long years.

1988 To Today: Aesthetically Designed Logo

In 1988, the company removed the white form strip from the wordmark. So, it was the same emblem with the brand name and the leaping cat but minus the form strip in 1988. It continues to be the company’s core brand identity.

After this brief Puma logo history, you would like to learn some lesser-known but interesting facts about the Puma logo.

5 Things To Know About The Puma Logo

Most iconic global brands are known for their uniquely designed, impressive logo. People recognize and align them with a brand. The Puma logo is an emblem that people know for high-quality shoes, such as Puma cricket shoes and sports apparel. But the emblem has its evolutionary history.

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Here are five facts that you will find interesting about the Puma logo:

01. The First Puma Logo Had ‘D’ In The Upper Case

The first Puma logo was launched in 1948 and looked much different from the present-day logo. At that time, the logo featured the letter ‘D’, with the puma cat jumping through the letter. The D letter represented the company’s founder Rudolf Dassler. In later years, the symbol had the word Puma added to it.

This monochrome image was not a great design but it successfully drove people’s attention. The Puma symbol with the cat jumping through the letter D also appeared in a different version within a hexagonal box.

02.The Logo Conveys Agility And Prowess

The leaping puma cat conveys prowess and agility. Therefore, the puma becomes a natural symbol of prowess in sports. In this way, the silhouette becomes the brand’s visual identity, and the cat symbolizes agility, grace, and strength.

So, the logo aligns with Puma’s mission statement: “to be the Fastest Sports Brand in the world.” The leaping Puma cat conveys that the brand intends to be ahead of its competitors in the sports goods and apparel manufacturing industry.

03. Once, People Mistook The Form Strip For The Logo

Besides the leaping Puma logo, the form strip was also a famous element of the company’s brand. It was so popular and familiar that people once considered it the company’s real logo.

But the form strip was there for a purpose. In the 1950s, manufacturers started using lightweight materials to make sports shoes. But the players could not gain much control of their feet movements due to the light material of the shoes. They had to run, kick, and perform various actions on the field.

So, during the 1958 World Cup, Puma launched boots with the form strip. It was a leather strip on the shoe’s side to support the players’ feet to help them move quickly.

At that time, the company gave a description of the form strip on the shoe. Its description said, “A form strip shoe cradles the foot securely while not compromising the range of motion and without adding too much pressure. It also prevents twisting the ankle or stretching the leather too much to the side or towards the heel.”

04.The Puma Logo Is Officially In Black

The official color of the Puma logo is still black, though the symbol appears in red and white colors. But the company has experimented with multiple colors in the past to keep the audience engaged and also to convey a brand message. Still, the company continued to keep the color black officially.

A reason behind keeping the black color is that on any other background, black background is an excellent transparent overlay. The company also developed inverted logo versions with a white base on multiple silhouettes.

An intention behind keeping the black color was to make the logo memorable as it would look sleek and simple. Black also is the color of power, strength, and authority.

05. The Logo Is Known As The ‘No. 1 Logo’

Another fact you should know about the Puma logo is that in 1968, the company introduced it as the ”No. 1 Logo.” The logo featured the cat jumping the wordmark.

Since then, the company has kept the design the same. Instead, only minor changes, such as removing the eye and nuzzle, and ears are more prominent now.

Design Elements Of The Puma Logo

People can instantly recognize the Puma logo for its unique but simple design. It has just one typeface, a picture, and color, making it a memorable symbol of excellence in sports goods markets. Here is how we can describe the emblem’s design elements.

Font

The wordmark used in the Puma logo is the company’s name in big capital letters. So, the sports shoes and apparel maker company conveys its brand personality with such a wordmark. Also, the new Puma logo typeface is sans-serif, and the letters have slightly rounded edges to make the brand look friendlier.

Pinpointing a particular typeface is difficult in the case of the Puma logo, as the company has yet to reveal it. But experts think the logo probably uses Quandor Regular or FF Softsoul Std Bold. The typeface used currently is slightly altered from what it looked initially.

Color

The Puma logo typically appears in black since it is the brand’s official color. Black evokes authority, power, and strength. So, the company chose black to convey the agility and power required in a sports field to compete hard.

Still, sometimes, the company uses a different color depending on the context. That is why the logo on some of its products is in white lines with solid red background. It also appears in a white and dark navy color palette.

These are the key things you might find interesting in the iconic Puma logo. The design is the result of its long evolutionary history. Also, the logo grew to reflect the company’s business and global ambitions.

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Wrapping Up

The Puma logo is an iconic global symbol of excellence in the shorts, shoes, and apparel markets. It conveys sports people’s ambition of being faster and more competitive. But the logo design went through its many evolutionary phases, with the company tweaking and redesigning it before getting the current logo.

by rott515

Amazon Logo Decoding The Hidden Meaning, Evolution And History

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Last updated on July 4th, 2023

Amazon is a leading multinational technology company and one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms. Like many other big companies, it’s recognized for its unique and impressive logo that effectively conveys the brand message to the target audience. The logo is a remarkable design and has helped make the company a household name. But its logo has a long evolutionary history.

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.

Before we further explore the history and evolution of the Amazon logo, first, know what the logo means.

Hidden Meaning Behind The Amazon Logo – History & Evolution:

Amazon logo may look like a simple design at first sight. But it has its message for its target customers. What could be the hidden meaning of the logo? Here is how we can decode it:

Hidden Meaning

A vital feature of the Amazon logo is its arrow. It is yellow and gets noticed from a long distance. But it has a meaning that defines the brand for its consumers.

We all know what a smile means. It conveys that the person is happy and satisfied in life. A smiling person spreads happiness all around, as a smile is contagious. That is why Amazon chose the arrow as an element of joy in the logo.

The logo has an arrow that looks like a smile on the face. This conveys the happiness and satisfaction of a customer after buying from Amazon.

Also, the arrow connects the letters a to the letter ‘z’ of the brand name, conveying the products’ availability for the consumers.

History And Evolution Of The Amazon Logo

Amazon logo is a famous emblem that people recognize as a trustworthy symbol of shopping online. But the logo design was different from what it is today. The logo started its journey on a humble note in 1995 and gradually got Amazon new logo for its target audience. But it always has been a simple design that people connected with easily.

Here is how the Amazon logo evolved:

1995 – Literal Version Of The Company Name

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.

The company and website name “amazon.com’’ was also incorporated at the logo’s base along with the caption “Earth’s biggest bookstore’’.

The wordmark was in a simple sans-serif typeface. So, the logo clearly showed that the store had the ambition to be the world leader in its sector.

This logo became Amazon’s brand identity at the beginning of the digital age. The designers had limited access to logo-designing tools back then. Experts and critics did not like the logo much. Many saw the river within the logo as old-fashioned and cliché. That is why the logo lasted only for two years until 1997.

1997- Detailed And Refined Version

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.