Amazon Hub Delivery
Turning a launch playbook into a global brand book for Amazon's local delivery program
Brand systems
Art direction
The short version
I turned Hub Delivery's launch playbook into a real brand: one book that any marketer or agency, in any country, could pick up and use.
Hub Delivery pays local businesses, like corner stores and salons, to deliver Amazon packages to their neighbors. It launched in the US in 2023 and grew to six more countries.
I spent a year as the art director for Hub Delivery at Creative Garage, Amazon's in-house creative team for its transportation brands.
What I inherited
A strong playbook, but no design system
In March 2023 an outside agency wrote a playbook for the US launch. It was strong on strategy, but it wasn't a design system.
It covered positioning, audience research, pillars, and the partner journey, but had no guidance on color, photography, illustration, or what a flyer should look like.
Then Amazon refreshed its global brand: a new smile, a new typeface, a bolder Prime Blue, and a structure for its sub-brands. Hub Delivery now had a playbook that predated the parent brand, and teams in a growing list of countries making new work every week. My brief had three parts:
Keep the strategy
The playbook’s positioning and audience work stayed.
Align with the parent brand
Follow Amazon’s new brand and its creative tenets, and keep parity with the sister brand, Amazon’s pickup and returns program.
Build what was missing
The visual guidelines the playbook never had.
The parent brand
Adopt, adapt, or skip, rule by rule
I put Prime's new guidelines next to Hub Delivery's work and went rule by rule.
Adopt
Prime Blue as the lead color, rounded-corner photos, and "break-outs" where an image pushes past its panel.
Adapt
Prime's lighting rules became brighter and more grounded for real partners in real neighborhoods, with no moody light, lens flare, or bokeh.
Skip
Rules that didn't fit a program built on small businesses.
Prime's guidelines, marked up rule by rule.
Building the book
Built for seven countries, scoped for one year
A delivery program looks different in every market, and a brand book can sprawl. I designed for both.
Illustration
A fix at the source
Amazon's illustration system used older blues that clashed with the new Prime Blue in marketing, so I added a supplemental blue palette for anything outside the app.
Local details
Uniforms and vehicles, country by country
In the US, partners wear a blue vest and drive their own car; in Egypt, they ride a scooter; in Japan, they wear a yellow safety vest. I built reference pages for uniforms and vehicles by country, so photographers and illustrators get the details right everywhere.
Who wears what, and who drives what, in each country.
Scope
Deciding what not to build
I scoped version one to what teams actually needed that year: foundation, voice, color, type, photography, illustration, and examples. Animation, radio, and music were drafted and marked "Not for v1."
Drafted, then parked for a later version.
The book
One brand book, with examples for every channel
The result was one global brand book: Hub Delivery's place under Amazon and Prime, its foundation and voice, and the full visual system with examples for every channel.
Pages from the Hub Delivery brand book. Want to see the whole thing? Ask me for the password.
Templates
Tools so no one starts from a blank page
The book came with a PowerPoint and Word template with title, agenda, data and section slides, an icon library, a US map, and slides that teach the type and color rules.
Word and PowerPoint templates built on the brand book.
Putting it to work
A book that holds up in the field
The book only matters if teams can use it. Over the year, I used it on every piece of Hub Delivery's recruiting marketing.
Recruiting
One set of modules for every piece
An out-of-home campaign ("Let the income pile up"), and postcards, doorhangers, referral flyers, and a partner sticker kit, all built on one set of modules: a clear headline, a "How it works 1-2-3," and a QR code.
The partner sticker program: co-branded package stickers that let a partner's business ride along on every delivery.
Localization
Adapted with each market
Marketing teams in each country adapted the same pieces, and I adapted the design with them: Portuguese for Brazil, Japanese for Japan, and Spanish for Spain and Mexico.
Brazil, Spain and Mexico, rebuilt in the new brand: doorhanger, postcard and recruitment flyer, front and back.
Japan, in the new brand: the partner referral flyer in Japanese.
The rebuild
Everything, rebuilt in the new brand
Once the book was done, I rebuilt the existing marketing in the new brand. Same messages, same modules; the brand around them changed: Prime Blue leads, photos get rounded corners and break out of their panels, and the headlines move to the new typeface.
US acquisition flyer, front and back. Left: 2024. Right: 2025.
US postcards for rural and urban neighborhoods, in the new brand.
Referral flyer for the $500 offer. Left: 2024. Right: 2025.
Japan mailer. Top: before. Bottom: after.
New work in the new brand: display ads across every standard size, in dark and light versions, and the referral postcard.
The result
Seven countries, one book
Marketing managers in seven countries now work from the same book. Building it in-house, rather than with an agency, saved an estimated $198K.
→
→
→
→
Who’s involved:
Art director (me), creative director, copywriters, and Hub Delivery marketing partners in seven countries
What I learned
Keep the strategy, build the system
The launch playbook already knew who Hub Delivery was for. My job was to give that a look, a voice, and rules that hold up in seven countries, and to trace every rule back to the parent brand so Hub Delivery stayed unmistakably Amazon.
In-house can be the better choice for a system
Building the book in-house, alongside the marketers who’d use it, saved an estimated $198K.
