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Text in Motion
By Michelle | May 11, 2008
I discovered on YouTube the other day a fusion of two of my favorite things — V for Vendetta and typography. Huh?, you might ask — what an odd combination. But yes, see it and love it.
So what is this moving text thing anyhow? Called sometimes kinetic typography” and sometimes “motion typography,” it’s the art of taking spoken words and manipulating the transcription to match the rhythm, the meaning, the mood, etc. Think of it as the visual version of spoken word poetry or the text version of well-done stop-action photography.
Of course, there are numerous theories about kinetic typology “best practices” and methods. The example above focuses mostly on the cadence of V’s speech — the extended pauses, the crescendos, the rise and fall of his tone — there’s little (if anything) in the presentation of the text itself that is tied to the meaning of the words themselves. Some methods include how the lines of text gradually start to overlap and grow in size as V concocts string upon string of ever-increasingly obscure v-words together, dashing headlong to the apex where he slashes at the poster on the wall. Then a pause. And when he begins to speak again, it’s softer, more viscous, almost sticky like honey — and the words across the screen stick to each other like dribbles of maple syrup…
But what about other examples? I don’t speak Spanish, but this one, based on the song “Ya no sé qué hacer conmigo,” is particularly advanced artistically (I wonder if it’s fan-made or whether it’s actually that song’s music video). Or there’s this one (the rules of Fight Club). If you can get past the “shaking camera” — ie the background behind the text wobbles as though it’s being filmed with a hand-held camera — it’s not bad. And actually, although I can see why the creator may have decided to try to mimic this “grunge” / “amateur” film style, it’s just a little distracting.
I actually haven’t seen Wedding Crashers, but this clip is another good example of some nice typography. This one takes a slightly different approach — instead of displaying each word spoken in text, it uses snippets of a monologue in Oceans Eleven to try to visually (using text) illustrate the plan for the casino break-in. And I’m not sure where the audio of this one comes from, but it’s not half-bad.
Topics: Randomness |