Product videos are generally boring AF (apathetic fo’ real) – but they don’t have to be.

A talented animator, typically teamed up with a talented graphic designer, can really, as my old friend Emeril Lagasse used to say, kick it up a notch. BAM!

I’ve seen my fair share of product demos, and this one from Zendesk takes the cake, by far. A lot of tech companies lean into the simplicity of 2D, which has become the way of the SaaS world nowadays. Long gone are the days of 35mm images, Surge fueled collages, and texture* (my most cherished word of 2021). But Zendesk harkens back to those days with print-esque imagery and three-dimensional graphics, while at the same time maintaining modernity and adding a dash of simplicity. BAM!

One of my favorite aspects of this video, which may not be noticeable to folks who don’t typically peruse the internet for tech product videos, is the usage of the “posterize time” effect, featured in Adobe products like Premiere and After Effects. An effect, if used correctly, can be a subtle way to give your video a vintage feel without having to play it through a video cassette controller.

Hats off to the team at Zendesk, whomever you are.

* this is a dramatic sentence, I know people still utilize these elements.