Newsletter Template Design
Amazon Prime Video - Internal Team Newsletters
Overview
Yes, you did see the MS-Excel logo in the thumbnail. Who says good design is only for Adobe or Figma?
I created a Microsoft Excel design template for an internal Amazon team to easily share quarterly newsletters about their progress, highlights, and achievements. Since the team lacked enough designers and project managers were responsible for content, I designed a self-editable template they could use independently. This promoted frugality and allowed the newsletter text to be edited directly in email tools like Outlook, Apple Mail, or Gmail before sending.
Old Lifecycle of making a Newsletter
Making newsletters in this team was a collaborative effort. The project manager would write out the content and send it to a designer who would then create a design based on this content and then send back to the project manager for review. If there are any content changes, errors or design changes needed, the project manager would send all this as feedback to the designer. The designer would edit it the design accordingly and send it back for review. After the reviewing and feedback cycle is completed and the project manager and designer are happy with the newsletter, they then send it to upper management for a final review. If there are any changes given by upper management, it would go back to the designer to edit and send back for final review once again. After the final-review cycle is completed, the newsletter is then scheduled to be sent out by the project manager. This lifecyle of making a newsletter takes upto 2 hours & 40 minutes/designer and 2 hours 30 minutes/project manager, a total of about 5 hours of employee time spent on this activity.
Proposed Solution - New Lifecycle of making a Newsletter
With my newsletter design template, the project manager populates their content and images into an already existing newsletter design and then sends it out as an email for review. The email can be edited during review by the upper management instead of needing to send it back to the project manager for edits. The time taken to create a newsletter is cut down to 2 hours and 5 minutes/project manager and no design time is spent. This is a reduction of employee time spent from 5+ hours to 2 hours and 5 minutes on this activity.
Colors
Colors in dark theme
#2F242F
#3C2F3C
#7D637D
#624B5E
#FFFFFF
Colors in light theme
#C4B4C3
#B29CAF
#DAD1DA
#E2DBE3
#333333
Typography
I used Amazon’s own “Ember” font to keep the newsletters on-brand and ensure consistent display across all employee computers. Applying a perfect fourths ratio (1.333) for font scaling, I used only P1, H5, and H2 for body text, subheadings, and main headings to maintain a clear yet simple visual hierarchy.
H2 - 54 pts
H5 - 22 pts
P1 - 12 pts
How it Works
Open the File
Open the Excel file containing the newsletter design.
The layout includes 6 content sections.
Add Text Content
Click any cell and type your content (just like a normal Excel file).
Formatting, colors, and Amazon’s Ember font are pre-applied — simply replace the sample text.
Delete any unused sections using standard Excel tools.
Add Image Content
Choose 6 images sized 622 × 754 px.
Use the provided Photoshop template if you need to resize or export images quickly.
To insert images:
Click the image cell → Insert → Pictures → Picture from File.
Select the image → Insert → Place in Cell to snap it into place.
Repeat for all 6 sections.
Last step: Send the Newsletter
Select the entire design in Excel → Copy → Paste into a new email (Outlook, Gmail, or Apple Mail).
Check spelling, image alignment, and content accuracy.
Hit Send!
Newsletter Design for another team in Amazon
