Amazon’s Best Books of the Year
For the past few years, I have owned the design of the biannual Amazon Best Books of the Year campaign. Each June and December, the list of titles is hand-picked by a team of editors who read thousands of books per year and share their recommendations on Amazon Book Review to help customers find their next great read. This list becomes a key marketing moment, and is publicized on social, OOH, in-app, and even on television programming. Each Best of the Year release is branded with a unique design system, color palette, type treatment, and collection of visual elements to be applied to a variety of touchpoints, both physical and digital.
The largest campaign placement is a digital billboard in New York City. Located just outside of Penn Station, the screen is over six stories high and wraps around the corner of a building with views of the Empire State Building.
Style Guide
To ensure consistency across the work created by external teams and agencies, I developed thorough design documentation with guidelines on typography, color palette HEX values, book cover drop shadow specifications, and supporting graphic details.
Concept Development
The process begins with early explorations to determine the overall look-and-feel. I typically present three divergent concepts to my stakeholders based on project requirements and customer messaging, then the working group narrows it down to one direction.
