Typography In Motion
In most designs typography is used to present information in a rather static way — after all, it has to be read by users. However, it doesn’t have to be like this. What effects can be achieved if typography is set in motion? What happens if letters are suddenly floating, jumping and dancing around while sentences are actually interacting with the readers?
Where motion is involved, video is necessary. Below we present some excellent examples of typography embedded into movies and videos — be prepared, “dynamic” typography can be breathtaking.
Typography In Motion
Cuarteto de Nos
This music video of the Spanish Uruguayan band Cuarteto de Nos is mostly based upon typography. For our purposes it isn’t important what the song is actually about — the brilliant performance of typography makes a lasting impression. The colors are chosen wisely and carefully. The combination of letters, illustration and text effects is simply incredible. A must-see for typography lovers.
Alex Gopher – The Child
A video created by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet for the French DJ Alex Gopher. A world made only with typography. Cult video for fonts lovers and graphic designers.
The Hush Sound – The Lions Roar
So simple, yet so beautiful. Apparently, sometimes you just need to follow your inspiration. The rest isn’t that important.
Pulp Fiction in Typography
What Does Mr. Wallace Look Like?
Typographics
Typography is what language looks like. A brief movie about typography with interacting typographic elements.
Duck and Cover
Typography assignment using audio from an old public service announcement called “Duck and Cover” from the 50s.
Further Resources
- Court.TV
A typographic intro. - Typography In Music Videos
A growing collection of music videos based upon different typography techniques. - Citizen Cope – Let The Drummer Kick
A typographic animation of Citizen Cope’s song “Let the Drummer Kick”.
The Last Click
Royksopp – Remind Me
OK, it’s not about pure typography, but this music video is fascinating. As stated here, you can watch it dozens times and still not catch everything. A day in the life of an average working Jill, broken down into its minutest component parts. The unstated joke: mankind has erected immense, resource-devouring systems of almost incomprehensible complexity just so you can sit in your cubicle.
Robin
November 19th, 2007 4:46 pmIt’s shame that some of these are just YouTube videos – I’d love to see higher quality versions, particularly of the ‘typographics’ clip
Richard Francis Kay
November 19th, 2007 4:58 pmGreat post! They look absolutely fabulous :-) Thanks for putting such an effort in this Smashing resources/quality website!
Eli
November 19th, 2007 5:08 pmSeen the Pulp Fiction one before, really quite interesting.
Also, as Robin said, it would be good if we could see a better quality version of these, I hate the tiny little videos :)
JoK
November 19th, 2007 5:11 pmWhat a perfect begin for this week !
Thanks a lot smashing yeah.
Some of this videos are absolutely cultish.
David Airey
November 19th, 2007 5:24 pmThe Alex Gopher vid is one of my all-time favs. I’d never seen the Royksopp video before, even though I really like that track, so thanks for posting it.
uli
November 19th, 2007 6:16 pmgreat post, thanks for that! I hope there will be a chapter 2 with opening titles of movies …
and those youtube-flash-movies suck. I wish quicktime ruled the net :(
~~~d(o.o)b~~~
November 19th, 2007 7:20 pmAlex Gopher… I love his music style… and that clip is perfect!…
Jet… I like their song and that video rocks too…
Pulp Fiction… Does he look like a bitch?… BAM, BAM, hrhr…
Thanks for that great stuff!… really smashing…
hAVE pHUN
~~~d(o.o)b~~~
Aaron
November 19th, 2007 8:59 pmMaybe Prince’s 1987 video clip for Sign ‘O’ The Times was maybe the first commercial use of mainly typography in video clips:
Prince’s video on Dailymotion
Franko
November 19th, 2007 9:15 pmThat’s quite nice also: Wedding Crashers: The Perfect Girl
Jonny Haynes
November 19th, 2007 9:30 pmreally smashing work ;-) seriously, keep it up!
Wendy
November 19th, 2007 9:40 pmwould love to see the font download references from those movies mentioned
cemiotika
November 19th, 2007 9:59 pmHi there!, CUARTETO DE NOS is not a SPANISH band, is a BAND from URUGUAY (south america!),
I’am from Uruguay too!, that’s why i know where is the band from!…
CheerZ! (sorry for my english)
joseph
November 19th, 2007 10:07 pmThis is an excellent article. Loved this post…So many talented pieces in this.
Anthony
November 19th, 2007 10:16 pmRoyksopp is awesome. This has been one of the better Inspiration monday posts. Keep it up Smashing!
Michael Peters
November 19th, 2007 10:23 pmThis is fucking incredible post! The best Monday Inspiration so far!
Chris
November 19th, 2007 11:09 pmhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIDdx7NPJgo
~~~d(o.o)b~~~
November 20th, 2007 12:13 am@Stephane:
Nice track and a cool clip 2… ;-)
hAVE pHUN
~~~d(o.o)b~~~
Ryan Uhrich
November 20th, 2007 12:19 amHi Robin,
Yeah, the Youtube version is really compressed and hard to see. You can view a higher quality version of Typographics at:
http://wearenormal.ca/
cheers :D
Ryan
tite
November 20th, 2007 12:38 amYeaaaaah !!!
AweSomEEEEE MONDAY
Thanks
Jonic
November 20th, 2007 12:55 amHere’s another cool typography in motion clip… It’s more about the animation than the typography itself, but it’s worth a peek anyway…
It’s the first 30 seconds of Blackalicious’s “Chemical Calisthenics”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozcFzxHnPhE
CrazyLeaf
November 20th, 2007 1:47 amLove the Pulp Fiction one. Really interesting.
JC
November 20th, 2007 2:03 amMore here: http://deafmusician.com/creative-motion-typography/
ezKiel
November 20th, 2007 3:35 amYou have to include this one
Wes O'Haire
November 20th, 2007 3:36 amHey guys check out this one out too…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HSmnIMvgyE
Ben
November 20th, 2007 5:04 amNice article as always. I love typography, particularly in movie credits.
Matty
November 20th, 2007 9:49 amSmashing post! This was very inspiring for me, thanks a lot Smashing Magazine. :)
Mig Reyes
November 20th, 2007 12:23 pmHey, thanks for posting our video! It’s an honor to be among so many other great type-based motion videos. Check out our high-rez version on Vimeo!
http://www.vimeo.com/liqueoum
thejanuaryfall
November 20th, 2007 12:33 pmthe hush sound one is made by my friend mig reyes, he.s a student at the illinois institute of art … so you should give credit to mig reyes, not the hush sound …
Mig Reyes
November 20th, 2007 1:19 pmI did it in collaboration with Matt Born, he never gets enough credit haha. Thanks!
Carola
November 20th, 2007 5:04 pm@cemiotica (or anyone informed)
Do you know who made the Cuarteto de Nos video ?
(translation: sabés de quien es el video del Cuarteto de Nos?)
torkla
November 20th, 2007 10:22 pm@Carola
Productora: Milagrito Films
Director: Charly Gutierrez
:)
Bruno
November 21st, 2007 12:29 amHi!,very good selection , i am uruguayan , and is good to see a high quality work like the Cuarteto videoclip listed here.
By the way, amazing blog, i have this feed on favorites. Keep Smashing!
stefano picco
November 21st, 2007 1:28 amsimply call it motion-design
Raf
November 21st, 2007 1:30 amIf you’re going to talk about typography in motion you gotta talk about the masters – mk12. http://www.mk12.com/
Just check out their reel.
TheUprock!.com
November 22nd, 2007 1:42 amA little disappointed when I opened — I’ve seen all these videos before, by simply typing “typography” into YouTube.
I can’t believe you guys didn’t include this video, which pioneered most of the aforementioned clips and their styles —
http://www.mk12.com/video-popup.html?video=/v5_quicktime/2003/brazil.mov&title=BRAZIL%20INSPIRED%3A%20MACHO%20BOX&date=&info=2003&type=inhouse
Dom Gregori
November 23rd, 2007 5:15 amCan’t believe no one included this one. http://brian.shaler.name/pages/blog/hey-ya-typography-animation/
Out cast’s hey ya covered by Obadiah Parker (Acoustic) all typography by Brian Shaler.
-Dom
madriaza
November 24th, 2007 4:49 amwe publish this post about 5 months ago. see Motion Typographics on Digilicious.cl
Stefan
November 25th, 2007 7:50 amMhhh, great but Colurzblog published some movie based typographie videos a few days earlier. Also great!
paqpaq
November 25th, 2007 8:12 amAlso a nice Type video
cb
November 27th, 2007 4:35 amThis is all a rip of Kyle Cooper’s work.
If you don’t know about Kyle Cooper, you probably need to – he’s the Saul Bass of contemporary motion graphics. If you don’t know who Saul Bass is…
NR
November 28th, 2007 4:43 pmWhat kind of programs are used for this videos. And are there some tutorials on the web so I can start experimenting with it.
Love the videos!!
fayyaz B.
December 10th, 2007 9:29 pmCool stuff… very inspiring!.
I remembered an ad for one of the earliest MAC Ads which had a really cool TYPOGRAPHY animation. It was so smooth and cool like MAC ads are, though I never got hold of that ad or how that was made.
nicole
March 4th, 2008 8:56 amLet the Drummer Kick
is also another fun typography piece.
chestah
April 7th, 2008 5:46 ampulp fiction in typography is smashing!
Reginald
May 13th, 2008 1:01 pmTypography in motion…everything is always that much more impressive with a little animation.
Mh CHOG
June 21st, 2008 2:17 pmWhere can I find tutorials to do these motion effect in Flash our After Effects?
muthu
June 28th, 2008 1:46 amUR sufflies a lot of tips to artist
thankssssssssssssssss
rivetindia
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X7007
September 30th, 2008 12:47 pmMan, thats nice examples. My favorite is “long brown hair”
Greets X7007.COM
pieter heyman
October 14th, 2008 5:40 amI created one to
inspired by the song and the other motion graphic “jet – are you gonna be my girl”
this is my version
Matthew Born
November 29th, 2008 5:02 pmI just happened to walk into the living room while my parents were watching A Boy Named Charlie Brown on ABC Family and was quite astounded. Type-driven motion graphics from 1969!
I Before E Except After C
Rickard Bengtsson
May 16th, 2009 11:55 amHere’s a typography music video I made
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7C5H8HPQjk
passionmotion
May 19th, 2009 12:20 pmok ok Cuarteto de Nos is really good. but look at this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u_rbjZhtCI&feature=channel_page : the shiznit!
passionmotion
May 19th, 2009 12:20 pmsoo fresh!
Robert H
June 15th, 2009 8:44 amJust an FYI that almost all of the links on YouTube are gone thanks to WMG removing them. you might want to track down some new ones, these were great.
zeebi
August 19th, 2009 12:58 amvery nice collection specially the 3rd one. I personally like some more here
Nick
April 20th, 2010 5:45 pmThis is great!
I am currently working on a school project and this is my topic (motion typography).
does anyone know a motion designer who specializes on typography, who I could interview?
Motyar
July 28th, 2010 8:27 amGreat collaction, you should take a look at Typographic Animation With Jquery at this blog http://motyar.blogspot.com/2010/07/typography-animation-using-jquery.html