Kinetic Typography is the creation of moving type within film. The art form is used a lot within the film industry in beginning and end credits.
The art form itself is actually a lot older than people would think it is. Early examples of kinetic typography can be traced back to 1899 when infamous filmmakers such as George Melies had used a mix of cinematic transition effects and static text to give an effect that the text is actually moving.
Even though the art form had been played with in the past, it was never looked upon as being used to it’s full effect. It was only in the 60’s when American graphic designer, Saul Bass, started to produce his own title sequences for many filmmakers at the time such as Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick.
Bass’ most famous title sequence to date would have to be the one that he produced for the Alfred Hitchcock film ‘North by Northwest’ where a condensed font is used to move across the opening film imagery of a New York building. Now that the art form had been introduced to the commercial film industry it began to become more commonly used by many other filmmakers. Bass went onto produce title sequences for many classic movies such as ‘Big’ and ‘Goodfellas’.
Bass’ most famous title sequence to date would have to be the one that he produced for the Alfred Hitchcock film ‘North by Northwest’ where a condensed font is used to move across the opening film imagery of a New York building. Now that the art form had been introduced to the commercial film industry it began to become more commonly used by many other filmmakers. Bass went onto produce title sequences for many classic movies such as ‘Big’ and ‘Goodfellas’.
Kinetic typography in recent years is still very popular especially with amateur filmmakers and graphic designers that are starting to make a move into motion graphics as a whole because kinetic typography is a very good starting point for motion graphics. With programmes like Adobe After Effects it has become fun and easy to create great looking moving typography in less than a day.
Kinetic typography is still used within commercial films; for example, the ‘Catch Me If You Can’ title sequences involve both typography and vector shapes. But the art form has become very popular with online promotion. An example of this can be Cee-Lo Green single ‘F**k You’. Before an official video was made for the song, a kinetic typography video was made and released online via YouTube and received over 6,000,000 views in the space of 3 months.
With advancements in design technology and with new motion artists appearing on the commercial design scene, I think kinetic typography are going to be around for a long time.
