Final: Expressive & Kinetic Type

Well. It's Monday. And the due date for Ronald Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" speech has arrived. It has been a long, stressful, but educational and productive journey into the world of kinetic typography. This project has challenged me to view typography from an entirely different angle, through the lens of motion.

This project has taught me to trust process, to lean on it and have patience. Seeing the first class' final videos made me want to rush to the lab, open AfterEffects, and start throwing things together. But as I soon figured out, the projects that I saw were much harder to achieve than I originally thought. It's been a long journey getting to the final .mov file but it's been worth it and as I look back on the project, I can see just how important those stepping stones were to building the final wall.

Half of this project wasn't even in AfterEffects, it was in InDesign, building spreads, learning how to clearly articulate expression within typography. I've discovered that I find more success within printed typography (as opposed to kinetic typography) and while I'm sure that's subject to change as I move forward, right now, designing typography within spreads is where I'm most comfortable.

That being said, I think my expressive type (the book) is stronger than my kinetic type (the movie). I think I was able to push the limits within the spreads where with my movie, I was struggling to just get the motion to where I wanted. Focusing on sophistication and power through a limited color palette and stoic typefaces, here is the final design in the experimentation of expressive type:

Open publication - Free publishing - More kinetic type

Distinctively, my movie focuses on pushing the limited color palette further (more contrast, more red) to achieve a closer connection to the Soviet Union as well as the transfer of power. My movie also works to create good design through the combination of typography, color, motion, music, and speech.

Because of this combination of so many different elements, I worked to have a purpose for every motion that came up on the screen, not just for type to move for movement's sake. It was a challenging task, but after the third and fourth round of major changes, I began to achieve more motion and more emotion with the moves that I was making. In light of all that, I present the final movie, focusing on creating a powerful message of peace and liberalization (not liberation, thank you to everyone who so kindly corrected me) through kinetic typography.