Zendesk CX Trends 2025
World building for the biggest campaign of the year for Zendesk
Services
Campaign art direction, illustration development, editorial direction, art direction kits
Year
2024
Introduction
CX Trends is Zendesk’s annual trend and thought leadership campaign, one of the company’s biggest marketing drivers throughout the year. For 2024, the campaign focuses on the idea of intelligent CX, with emerging technology driving personalised experiences, next generation social commerce – and the privacy implications that come with customer data. I was responsible for leading the art direction of the entire campaign from brief to pitching concepts and seeing through the applicable art direction and kits for team enablement of assets. It was the largest campaign I’ve ever gotten to lead.
Creative Director: Sam Bathe
Producer: Beryl Baker
Art Direction: Tim Lampe
Narrative & Messaging: Raven Wadley-Wright
Production Design: Paige Carrington
Illustration: Sophia Foster-Dinimo
Video team: Victor Duran, Mary Vertulfo, Tori Cincotta, Colin Thomas, Daniel Peterson, Kendrick Hammond, Monica Yap
Website Design & Build: One Darnley Road
“CX Trends is looking ahead with a trend-forecasting campaign that lays out the biggest trends within customer experience, and beyond into the wider tech industry.”
The Concept
Building on Zendesk’s 2023 brand refresh, the campaign art direction leans into editorial design, with a suite of illustrations that would be right at home in the New Yorker or Monocle. The messaging approach that’s confident, optimistic, and excited for this year future as AI bring innovation across all stages of CX.
The ultimate expression of the editorial approach is within the longform hero report, designed to be both skimmable for those interested in one or two particular topics – and for the audience who will settle in for the long haul, taking in every word.
My personal goals were to elevate our editorial voice, build a world of CX Trends with hero and key illustration work, and set ourselves apart with a fantastic web presence and report design.
Illustration
Development
Building the illustrative world of CX Trends was a challenge, and we knew we needed to expand outside of our house illustration style which was more simple. We explored a lot of different directions and vetted illustrators, and in the end we decided to go with Sophia Foster-Dinimo, who fit the bill perfectly. I worked closely on developing concepts, going through rounds of feedback and direction with Sophia and making sure they were all working cohesively across the report applications and digital.
The hero illustration for the campaign (above) features collection of mini-scenes, stacked within a building cross-section. Characters interact with those in other vignettes, handing items between floors as data passes across the scene. The illustration features a number of easter eggs that connect to the company and wider campaign.
The illustration series incorporates different levels of fidelity. The 10 trends within the campaign are grouped into three trend areas, visualised with detailed scenes to create intrigue and excitement. Then we created a simpler illustration for each individual trend, that would work both within the trend report, and across social and other awareness assets.
Deliverables
