Kinetic Typography: Dancing Words

I've always liked words, so perhaps that's why typography holds a certain appeal for me.  The artistic ways in which words can be relayed fascinate me: word clouds, alphabet photography, and shape poetry, among others. To me, the written word is in itself a kind of art form.

Kinetic typography takes the aesthetics of words to a whole new dimension by giving  them life. The creator of kinetic typography is able to add color and vibrancy to words, and make them even more mesmerizing and captivating than they already are.  The kinetic typography videos that I hold near and dear to my heart are the ones that incorporate both audio and motion -- adding music or voice to words can bring out their meaning in a way that goes beyond their appearance on a page.

Here is one of my favorite kinetic typography videos. The typography is to one of my favorite songs, "The Lion's Roar" by the Hush Sound.

I really appreciate the technical skill involved in making something like this (it took them about a year to make!), but I also love that the creators were able to emphasize certain aspects of the song that they deemed important. Each portrayal of a song or poem in portrayed kinetic typography reflects the interpretations of the creator, and allows them to share how they feel about a particular work.

I tried my hand at kinetic typography myself last year, when I did my Dancing Haiku Public Poetry Project. I didn't  have the software to do the motion that I wanted, but I had a lot of fun animating the text and picking music to fit the winning haiku submissions.

Here is the most technically advanced piece of kinetic typography that I made while working on the project:

The dandelions and dandelion fluff were a mess to animate -- they took over 20 layers in Photoshop, and then I had to import them  to After Effects, spending another hour-and-a-half tweaking them so that they appeared to fall or appear at the right time. I have become ridiculously familiar with all the quirky little add-ons and animations that After Effects hides in its occasionally frustrating menus.

 Unfortunately, my copy of After Effects has become prone to displaying a red screen relaying an unwelcome message: "Your 30-day trial is over". For now, this has hindered me in my quest to create works of kinetic typography. But once the frenzy of applications and schoolwork dies down a little, I will address this perturbing issue and try my hand at creating once again.