Kinetic typography

Kinetic typography—the technical name for "moving text"—is an animation technique mixing motion and text. This text is presented over time in a manner intended to convey or evoke a particular idea or emotion. It is often studied in Communication Design and Interaction Design courses. Some commonly seen examples of this technique include movie title sequences and credits, web page animation and other entertainment media.

History

With the advent of film and graphic animation, the possibility of matching text and emotion emerged. Scholars recognize the first feature film to take advantage of kinetic typography as Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. This film's title sequence—created by Saul Bass—contained animated text, listing the cast, that "flew" in from off-screen, and finally faded out into the film itself. A similar technique was also employed by Hitchcock in Psycho. [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/kt/dist/files/Kinetic_Typography.pdf]

Since then, the use of kinetic typography has become commonplace in film introductory titles and television advertisements.

Production

Kinetic typography is often produced using standard animation programs, including Adobe Flash, Adobe After Effects, and Apple Motion. Students at CMU's School of Design have created a dedicated Kinetic Typography Engine [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/kt/] , which is used to teach kinetic typography techniques to students. The effect is most often achieved by compositing layers of text such that either individual letters or words can be animated separately from the rest.

References

External Links

* [http://thetypographychannel.blogspot.com/ The Kinetic Typography Channel]
* [http://www.artofthetitle.com/ Art of the Title — A site that catalogs particularly interesting title sequences, many of which feature kinetic typography]
* [http://www.marcofolio.net/video/15_stunning_motion_typography_videos.html 15 Stunning Motion Typography Videos]
* [http://www.typophile.com/node/36484 Kinetic Typography at Typophile]
* [http://joaobordalo.com/articles/2007/08/15/top-12-kinetic-typography-films Top 12 Kinetic Typography Films]
* [http://www.crookedgremlins.com/09/01/2008/kinetic-typography-tutorial/ Kinetic Typography Animation Tutorial]