Zendesk Relate 2024 took place in Vegas, and our brief asked us to bring the heat. Zendesk brought together 3000+ CX leaders to Vegas for the week to reveal new product launches, AI innovations, and strategies for making your business better with your customer service.
The creative team developed a concept that matched could match the heat of the event, while allowing us to stand out in Vegas, where content is fighting for your attention at every turn. I mean, who can compete when your event is next door to the Sphere?
Myself and my team developed the animation direction and kits that allowed us to serve keynote presentation, promotional materials, and spatial animation (custom animation for the DJ booth, duh).
Early inspiration for systems came from amazing work by the pros, like How To’s brand identity for Deadly Dust, and select moments from Material You by Oddfellows. I believe references only go so far, and the goal of a motion system to should be to capture the core feeling of a brand or branded moment.
I always find that the best motion results come from speaking with designers and animators about about these feelings and experiences that feel familiar to us. Our working sessions looked like fewer moodboards, and more conversations and alignment of the emotional and physical experiences. (“This moment should feel like you’re stepping out onto the hot-ass tarmac at the Vegas airport! or… “Can we make this into sequence feel as dramatic as an eclipse?”)
Defining animation styles for gradients is a challenge that never gets old for motion designers. The incredible Sara Farnsworth helped me bring the styleframes below to life after a few rounds of developing a new motion behavior for the Zendesk logo that wouldn’t conflict with the slow, sultry, hazy style of the gradients that were developed initially for the art direction.
After developing the motion system, Colin Thomas helped to scale it. We created mogrt kits and animation styles suited for both complex graphics (diagrams, product UI animation) as well as simple ones (again, DJ booth). Being able to reduce a motion system to stay simple but still express the core stylistic techniques that make it unique and sticky for attendees is the most challenging and rewarding part of scaling a system.
Looping hold screen for the mainstage by Colin Thomas
We had a team of incredible presentation and brand designers ready to flex into motion to scale the system. Arienne Gagui brought the system across all stage graphics, with multiple synced screens that supported keynotes, musical performances, and an appearance by Michelle Obama.
Walk on sequence designed by Arienne Gagui