Kinetic typography

What is kinetic typography?

Kinetic typography is a technique in animation that uses moving text. The words can move across, up or down the screen. Also, the text can be changed in size and color, combined into different shapes. That’s what our catchy eye is totally used for.

What can be measured as kinetic typography?

Kinetic typography is divided into a few different categories. Experts in graphic design highlight the following types of it:

• dynamic layout
• scrolling typography
• fluid typography

The classification depends on the behavior of the text. The words and letters in a dynamic layout move directionally, shifting from one place to another. Using the scrolling typography, the motions will be mapped on a panning motion of the backdrop. In fluid typography individual letterforms are not fixed in any shape or location. Thereby moving typography makes the text more impactful and engages a viewer’s attention to the main ideas of content.

The kinetic typography helps to set a tone or evoke particular emotion as well. Animation studios often use animated text combined with the professional voiceover. That’s when you reach the max effect. On the contrary, if the user doesn’t want to watch video content with sound (and that’s a common thing), he or she can easily switch it off and read the text on a screen. That is possible due to kinetic typography which makes language visible.

Where is kinetic typography used?

Mixing of text and motion became possible with the advent of films and graphic animation. For the first time in cinema kinetic typography was used in Alfred Hitchcock’s film “North by Northwest” in 1959. The film’s opening titles were created by famous graphic designer Saul Bass.

Additional information

Today kinetic typography seems to be everywhere, and you definitely could see kinetic typography animation many times. For various industries, it is a must already. Kinetic typography is widely used in music videos, mobile apps, websites, movies, animated educational explainers, and much more. Several successful commercials were created solely based on kinetic typography techniques.

There are many benefits of using kinetic typography in the explainer video. With a large amount of information, key messages can be emphasized by “moving text”. Kinetic typography footage, graphics, and effects are created by means of animation programs, like Adobe Flash, Adobe After Effects, and so on. Still, these applications require prior user knowledge and experience.