kinetic type. the basics.

what is it.
the movement/animation of type to effectively express the information. basically this is the way to put the emphasis where it needs to be for the most impact.

what i think about it.
There was brief work with this concept last year and that is where I started to see the importance of using animated text. It really is a good tool to use to help move the focus of the text where you think it should be for the audience to get the most out of what you or the text is trying to say. Instead of only being able to vocally show emphasis on a particular word or phrase, you can also do that by making the text larger, or having that text spend a larger amount of time on the screen.

The examples below are ways that I hope that I will be able to use kinetic text in the future. I not only want to bring emphasis to spoken words, but also create images with text that help to further explain the message. Kinetic type allows the words to make a larger impact by often visually illustrating the message.

examples of it.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.
I was sent this video last year. The video is alright, it could be better, but I'm not totally sure how that could be done and work well. This was the first video that I thought of when I read about kinetic type. It is a pretty much how I think spoken word poetry/quotes should be like when visual represented. The progression of the words appearing on the screen tries to follow in the rhythm of the speaker.



78RPM - MP3 | 70 Years of Revolutionary Protest Music from Dan Flynn on Vimeo.
I thought this video was pretty effective. It combined the music and lyrics connotation with the visual connotation of the lyrics. I think the transitions could have been run a bit smoother or more rough; it was a bit of an odd transition between songs. But it was cool how the lyrics were presented, especially in the first song.



Typography in Motion from ilovetypography.com on Vimeo.
The most exciting part for me was that this piece highly educational. I really enjoyed how some parts of the video had the exact lines that the narrator was reading, as well as other times when using depth or other images help build up to a quote. What I loved the most was the end composition based off of the whole set up of the statements during the video. I feel that in general that is how typography should work, each line should help build the composition, but it is the overall view of the product that is most important.



My favorite video that I found. I had heard the song/words before on the Tom Waits' CD. But I felt that the visuals really went with what I had thought of a bit when I heard it. When there was the key moment of noise or a phrase, it was nice to see that the type movement corresponded with it.