Typography ( I can’t think of anything creative at the moment)

I have a new love.  And its name is typography.

I probably watched over 50 typography videos in less than a week and I can admit I have a problem.  That’s the first step, admitting your problem.

And there were some I loved, and some that were disastrous, but overall I learned some amazing concepts for mine.

The biggest lesson I learned has to be the importance of the quote, monologue, speech, song, etc.  Even if it’s from the greatest movie of all time, if there is not enough imagery or colorful language its damn near impossible to create a kinetic typography.  I tried.

My favorite would have to be the “V” speech from V for Vendetta. My v-word vocabulary increased dramatically due to this movie and I was happy to see this typography done so well.  Mostly, this was due to the fact that the creator kept it simple and emphasized the v words rather than adding a lot of illustration and details over the entire animation.  First lesson learned: keep it simple.

The most effective typographies were those that allowed me as the audience re-imagine what the text was from or come up with new images if I have never seen a visual version before.  For example, the typography for Walt Whitman’s “Pioneers” poem, something that could not have been a visual when it was initially created, constructed images through power and hierarchy through genius in the typeface.  But, it was done so without being condescending, but rather as motivation for everyone to conceptualize a better way of life.  ß All that was thought of while watching the typography.  Pretty amazing stuff.

One that really stood out (and you might see in my kinetic typography project, wink wink) are two monologues from The Social Network. Both typographies I watched ended with the words filling into either the ‘f’ of Facebook or the entire name.  But, you didn’t see this coming while watching the entire animation.  A simple pan out from last word showed this, so the audience is left to question whether all the words were originally in those spots or not.  Mind blowing.