Kinetic typography, at its core, is the art (and technique) of animating texts in a way that brings it to life, adding motion to letters, words, or phrases to convey emotions, tell stories, or pass a message in a visually captivating manner.
Initially, text editing simply involved picking a font, typing a message, and probably, adjusting font type, size, and color. But as design tools and concepts have advanced, basic text editing has evolved to an engaging combination of text, design, and animation.
A typical example of kinetic typography is the title of a movie dancing, floating, or originating from shapes and images, thus creating an experience before the movie even starts. You can use video editing tools like After Effects, to create common kinetic typography effects like this.
This article will show how to create kinetic text on After Effects, some presets you can use, and popular websites where you can download them.
In this article
Examples of Kinetic Typography
From brand communications to entertainment and education, kinetic typography effects have created a way to make text messages stand out. We can find these in brand messaging we see every day.
Take Apple for example.
Apple conveyed the company’s intentions of going carbon neutral strongly with the use of kinetic typography. The kinetic texts, the color palette, and the strong visuals did a great job passing the narrator’s message while resonating with the brand’s identity.
Burger King also clearly understands the power of kinetic texts in brand communications.
Their rebranding video plays around with texts and carries the viewers along so seamlessly. The kinetic texts emphasize the fundamental arts and creativity of the brand while presenting the food brand as fun and tasty.
Part 3: How to Create Your Own Kinetic Typography in After Effects
Some recent trends with typography animation in After Effects involve bringing clean texts to life using subtle animations, combining distorted texts with visual effects, and creating 3D texts that can be animated and manipulated to convey more than a message.
Also, brands have started integrating kinetic typography with motion graphics to create social media brand content, especially on Instagram and TikTok—a move that has helped several brands stand out with their brand messaging in a saturated market.
This shows how easily you can create your own kinetic typography with After Effects.
Method 1: Basic Multiple Title Block with Swing Effect
This method involves animating several text layers together—to create a contrasting block of text called a title block—and adding a swing effect to them.
Step 1: Create a new composition. Copy and paste your first text element and set it to its first position.
Step 2: In the Text Properties drop-down menu, select Animate > Opacity.
Step 3: In the Range Selector drop-down menu, reduce Opacity to 0%. Create a keyframe on the timeline, at the start of the animation, and change Start to 0%.
Step 4: Copy and paste the second text elements onto the composition and set it at its first position. On your first layer, enable Rotation, Position, and Scale keyframes, then move the text on the screen to its second position.
Step 5: Select the second text layer and click on Animate > Tracking.
Step 6: Add keyframes to the tracking values; adjust them to suit your desired outcome.
Step 7: Add a fade-in effect using the Opacity option. This way, your second layer will fade in at the same time.
Step 8: Next, add the swing effect. Go to Layer > New > Null.
Step 9: Using the Whip from your two text layers, attach them to the Null layer. This will allow you to reposition the text layers by moving the Null layer.
Step 10: Enable Position, Scale, and Rotation options in the Null layer and add keyframes as you adjust their different settings. Move the Null layer to the new position.
Step 11: Copy and paste your final text layer. Go to Animate > Position.
Step 12: Using the Range Selector menu options, move the text down the screen. Click on Animate > Opacity and adjust to suit you. Use the Advanced menu to choose whether to animate characters, words, or lines of text.
Method 2: Kinetic Typography Column Animation
Step 1: First, animate your titles. Create a text layer with your first word. Click on Animate > Tracking.
Step 2: Add a keyframe at your first animate point, depending on your speed. Move along the timeline and adjust tracking value to suit you.
Step 3: Select the timeline text layer, go to Edit > Split Layer. Here, you can change the new tile layer to your second word.
Step 4: Select the second text layer. Click on “U” on your keyboard to see the keyframes you placed. Reposition the keyframes by moving the first keyframe past the second. This way, the tracking effect is reversed.
Step 5: Select both text layers and create a compound clip; trim the end of the combined clips, if necessary. Duplicate the compound clip and position it so it plays immediately after the first.
Step 6: Reverse the second clip so it plays on a continuous loop. Right-click on the text layer and select Time > Time Reverse Layer. This will allow you duplicate the layers to match the length of the sequence. Remember the order—clip, reverse clip, clip, reverse clip.
Step 7: Select all the layers and create a single compound clip. You will have a single layer with a full-length looping animation.
Step 8: To create the column effect, duplicate the layer and duplicate as many times as you want.
Make Typography Animations with After Effects
Adobe After effects is a premiere tool when it comes to playing around with animations, particularly text animations. It has extensive features that allows you to get creative and design kinetic typography from scratch using different techniques.
Here are common kinetic text animations in After Effects that you can create and replicate for your creative projects. I mean, you can never go wrong with many options!
10 Kinetic Typography Effects for Text Animations on After Effects
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Text shadows
Text shadows add text and dimension to your typography. You can animate shadows to shift, increase, or reduce as the text moves on the screen.
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Handwritten texts
Handwritten typography animation with After Effects mimics hand-written texts. It uses strokes and matte layers to create a unique typography suitable for explainer videos. Here is how to do it.
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Smooth texts
This animation typo After Effect is subtle and focuses on seamless fluid motion. All you have to add texts first, and play around with text settings blur, rotate slide, glide, text color, and so on.
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3D Extrusion
3D fonts are so versatile that they can be modified by adding extrusion gradients and bevels. This makes it more appealing, and adds more depth to the text. This is how to do it.
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Integrating shapes in texts
This After Effects typography effect involves incorporating shapes with your text animations. Here, you slowly reveal the fonts, building suspense and getting viewers excited. This effect works great with any fonts, colors or shapes.
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Liquid texts
The fluidity of liquid texts adds to the versatility of this After Effects typography. You can create bubble effects, waveforms, or any water-like movement with a font of your choice. Follow the steps in this video to replicate.
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Jittery texts
‘Nervous effects’, as it is commonly called, can be used to create hipster-style effects for scary movie clips and trailers. Here is how to create jittery texts.
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3D Kinetic Effects
Modify your 2D text into a kinetic 3D text by playing around with rotation, layer snap, and other effects.
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Combining textures into texts
Add textures, insert characters, and improve regular texts to improve the aesthetics flair.
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The smooth transition from dots to letters
This kinetic typography effect animates dots smoothly to create dynamic text animations that keep your viewers anticipating what will appear next. Videos that use this kinetic typography have better retention rates. Here is how to do it.
Kinetic Typography Presets for Adobe Effects
While there’s a lot of fun and creativity in creating typography animation effects from scratch, using presets on After Effects can be easier and streamlines your editing process. Some of the websites where you can get kinetic typography templates include Envato Elements and Motion Array. You can download animated titles like the Typoking title animation kinetic typography text on Videohive.
Bonus: An Easier Way to Make Kinetic Typography on Filmora
Wondershare Filmora is a video editing software that allows you to create fascinating text animations. With integrated photo editing and text manipulation tools, Filmora makes your text animations pop and appear livelier.
- Easily animate text with various preset effects.
- Import and use unique fonts for creative designs.
- Adjust timing and movement with keyframe precision.
- Sync text movement with video elements seamlessly.
- Align text animations with audio for impact.
Steps to Creating Kinetic Typography with Filmora
Step 1: Go to Media > Project Media > Sample Color on the toolbar. Drag any color of your choice to the timeline.
Step 2: Go to the Titles tab. Drag a Basic Title template and place it above the Sample Color clip on the timeline.
Step 3: Right-click on the title clip on the timeline and select Edit Properties from the list of options. Click on Advanced. Here, you can change font type and size to suit you.
Step 4: On the timeline, start from the second layer and move every text layer 5 frames forward from the previous layer. This will display each word a few milliseconds after the second one. Click Ok.
Step 5: Export the timeline and save your text animation as a new clip. Then delete all the clips from the timeline and import the text video you just exported. Drag it to the timeline.
Step 6: Right-click on the clip on the timeline and select Edit Properties.
Step 7: Click on Animation > Customize on the toolbar. Adjust Scale settings to 120%.
Step 8: Move the playhead to the end of the clip on the timeline. Reset Scale and click Ok.
Conclusion
Kinetic typography is a fun and creative way of tweaking your videos. Follow the steps given in this article to create kinetic text with After Effects. Also, explore some typography animation after effects templates for free from any of the given websites. Or better still, enjoy a streamlined editing process and built-in templates on Filmora.
