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I’m a creative director, living and working on the sunny side of San Francisco.


Current:
  • Creative Director at Zendesk, where I own global brand campaigns, leading a talented team of designers, copywriters and motion designers.

Previous:
  • Senior Art Director at Yolt, a FinTech start-up inside ING, where I was responsible for brand look and feel across all touchpoints, including video campaigns, OOH, events, organic and paid social, site UX and design, and brand collateral.
  • Senior Digital Designer at One Darnley Road where I led projects on clients including the Smithsonian Institution, Square Mile Coffee Roasters, HarperCollins, Winkworth and luxury e-commerce destination, The Garnered.
  • Designer at VML where I worked on key projects for Premier League, Xbox, Land Rover, Bentley, Nike, Colgate, RIBA, Starling Bank, Virgin Active and PwC. VML was listed on Ad Age's Agency A-List.
  • Senior Designer at Northstar where I relaunched Audi Magazine’s iPad app.



Recent awards:
Webby Awards
2x Winner in Websites; 4x Nominated for B2B Branded Entertainment, Branded Editorial Experience, Corporate Social Responsibility, Art Direction; 5x Honoree for Branded Entertainment Documentary, Corporate Social Responsibility Campaign, Data Visualisation, Websites, Technical Achievement

The One Show
1x Winner for Digital Design, 4x Shortlist for Social Impact, Digital Design, Websites, Digital Design

Tribeca X Awards
Winner for Best Episodic Series

Vimeo Staff Picks
1x Best of the Year for Branded Videos, 1x Best of Month, 2x Staff Picks

Brand Film Awards
Winner for Animation; Honorable Mention for Direction; Finalist for Purpose

D&AD Awards
Wood Pencil Winner for Writing for Design, Finalist for Digital Experiences

Lovie Awards
10x Winner in Advertising, Websites, Corporate Communications, Video; 2x Shortlisted in Branded Content, Website

ADC 101st Awards
Winner for Experiential Design

Awwwards Annual Awards
Site of the Year shortlist

Shorty Awards
2x Winner for Branded Content Series and Long Form Video; 2x Finalist in B2B and Community or Employee Engagement
My work has been written about in:
AdWeek, It’s Nice That, Design Week, Campaign, Wired, Bloomberg, In-House In-Focus, The Verge, The Drum

Bucket list:
  • Sports league
  • Sports team
  • Criterion collection cover
  • Graphic design for a movie
  • Programme a talk series
  • Host SXSW talk
  • SXSW activation
  • Win a Webby Award
  • Win a Clio
  • Super Bowl ad
  • Short at a film festival
  • Major movie promo campaign
  • Museum exhibit
  • Say hello to Jason Isaacs
  • Produce a podcast

Recent speaking engagements:
  • The Infinite Canvas: Exploring AI’s Creative Potential, 2024
  • Figma Config, 2022
  • The Better Brand & Content Summit, 2022
  • Remote Design Week, 2021

Side projects:
I was the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of FAN THE FIRE, a tastemaking arts and culture magazine. The magazine built up a readership of over 5m and made it to the front page of Reddit, starting life as a magazine on the PSP over 15 years ago, one of the first ever portable digital magazines.

My other side projects include a companion app for type 1 diabetics which was taken on as an in-house project at VML London. I also ran several club nights in London, putting on over 50 events at venues including The Old Blue Last, Koko, Catch, Madame Jojo's and Queen of Hoxton.


For speaking opportunities you can contact me on: hello@sambathe.com
Sam Bathe, Creative Director