EXERCISE 3: Kinetic Typography - GRUOP ASSIGNMENT
March 3, 2025 | Week 5
NAME: Miao Xinjun
STUDENT I.D: 0379525
Information Design / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media/ Taylor's University
Project 2 - Exercise 3 (Group Assignment): Kinetic Typography
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INSTRUCTION
1.1 Lecture：
In the week 2 lecture, the instructor demonstrated how to create kinetic typography using Adobe Effects and encouraged us to complete preliminary exercises during class.
I had used After Effects (Ae) before to create some image works, but this was my first time trying to create text animation. During this learning process, I gained many new Ae functions and usage techniques that I was previously unfamiliar with, such as how to use Keyframing and Motion Blur to create rich text animation effects, and how to use Null Object and Parenting functions to unify the movement trajectory of text on different layers. With the instructor's patient help, I gained a deeper understanding of Ae and became more familiar with its usage in this assignment.
1.2 Instruction：
2. PROCESS
This group assignment was on Kinetic Typography. Our group of six was tasked with creating text animations from a song. We chose the English song "Sorry" and used After Effects (Ae) to create a dynamic lyric layout. The division of labor was as follows: each person was responsible for four lines of lyrics, and after completing theirs, they exported their videos and sent them to me. Finally, I merged all the segments, added the full music, and produced the final cut. After completion, everyone was required to upload the video to YouTube, save the link to their Google Drive, and update our blog with a record of the process.
Day 1: First Online Meeting: Determining Roles + Style Guidelines
Upon receiving the task, we immediately held our first online meeting.
This meeting focused on three main tasks:
- 1) Breaking down the lyrics, with each person responsible for their assigned 4 lines.
- 2) Standardizing the style (color scheme, overall atmosphere).
- 3) Determining the font scheme.
We clearly defined the font: two fonts. One for "regular lyrics" (easy to read, stable), and another for "emphasized words" (key words, emotional climaxes, transition words). This ensures a cohesive visual language for the entire video during the later merging process.
To facilitate a smooth merging process, I also addressed the "technical" aspects after the meeting: I was responsible for breaking the entire song down into 6 MP3s based on each person's section. This way, everyone only needed to align their own audio segment during production, instead of spending a lot of time searching for specific timestamps throughout the song. After splitting the lyrics, I uploaded the MP3s to our shared Google Docs/folder, clearly labeling each segment with the person responsible for it.
Day 2: Storyboard Sketching
Next, everyone started their own production. When I was working on my part, the first step wasn't to open After Effects immediately, but to sketch the storyboard.
I found that if you directly enter kinetic typography into the software, it easily becomes just "adding random motion effects," but that results in a very disjointed final product. So, I used the storyboard to define some key points:
- What emotion should each lyric express (more intense? more suppressed? lighter?)
- Which words need to be emphasized (change font, enlarge, jump, flash, etc.)
- How should the scenes transition (smooth entry or sudden cut)?
- How should the motion effects match the music rhythm (should the heavy beats have impact?)
After sketching the storyboard, I had a "rhythmic roadmap" in my mind, which made entering After Effects much faster and less likely to go astray.
Day 3 - 4: After Effects Digital Production
After opening After Effects, I first created the composition, imported my MP3 file, and arranged the lyrics in chronological order. Next came the most time-consuming part: creating keyframes line by line.
The goal for the first round of production was clear: to create a general overall effect. Because we were short on time, and the group planned to show the instructor at the next lecture whether the direction was correct, and then refine it after receiving feedback, I focused on these points in the first stage:
- Whether the text appearance time matched the lyrics
- Whether the animation rhythm roughly matched the music
- Whether the emphasized words had a clear visual impact
- Whether the style conformed to the color scheme and font rules agreed upon in our meeting
In this stage, I didn't pursue "very complex special effects," but rather focused on ensuring the text animation was "established," playable completely, understandable, and rhythmically consistent, so that I could confidently present it to the instructor.
Day 5：Instructor Feedback
Three days later, we presented our progress at the lecture and received feedback. The instructor's points were very precise, making me realize that the core of kinetic typography isn't really about "more animation," but rather "why the animation moves the way it does."
One of the instructor's main suggestions for our group was: to treat the music rhythm as the driving force of the animation more seriously. He mentioned that my segment already showed the direction of "following the rhythm," but the details could be stronger, such as:
- Adding more obvious flashes to the music beats
- Using shorter transitions or shakes to enhance the downbeats
- Adding glitch or flash effects in appropriate places to make the emotions more in line with the music
Another crucial suggestion was to diversify the font selection. The font we were using was too bold, which, while powerful, made it appear too "thick" and lacking refinement in some scenes. The instructor suggested we add thinner fonts to create variations in tone and avoid the entire piece looking "like a single bold template."
This suggestion had a significant impact on me because I immediately realized: this wasn't just about changing the font. Switching from bold to thin would change the text width, letter spacing, and overall balance; my original layout and animation paths might need to be readjusted.
The instructor also reminded us not to rely too heavily on common fonts and to pay attention to the transitions between different team members' segments; otherwise, the final merged work would resemble a "collage" rather than a complete piece.
Day 6: Second Meeting: Confirming the Third Thinner Font + Arranging a Transition
Upon receiving feedback, we immediately held a second online meeting. This meeting was more like "correcting the direction + starting to align details."
We made two decisions:
1) Confirm the addition of a third, thinner font and discuss which scenarios would be more suitable (e.g., lighter, more delicate sentences, or parts requiring white space).
2) Arrange paragraph transitions: For team members whose paragraphs are adjacent, separate meetings are needed to align "how to end and how to start the next paragraph," avoiding abrupt jumps after merging.
Day 6 - 9:My Second Improvement: Switching to Thinner Font + Adjusting Layout + Enhancing Beat
Then I started my second round of revisions.
This round, I mainly did two things: First, based on feedback, I made some key points more clearly aligned with the beat, creating more "musical" entrances and pauses (especially on strong beats or transitions).
Second, I replaced some bold text with a thinner font. The replacement indeed had a chain reaction: the text spacing and the center of gravity of the image changed, and I had to readjust tracking/leading, alignment, and the motion trajectories and pauses of some keyframes. In other words, the second round wasn't "fine-tuning," but a "reorganization" with a clear goal.
Final Submission:
Collecting Exported Files + Merging into a Single Footage + Uploading to a Shared Folder
Finally, everyone exported their final video clips and sent them to me. Before merging, I checked for consistency: resolution, frame rate, duration, and any extra blank space on the screen. After confirming everything was correct, I imported all the clips sequentially into the same After Effects project or editing timeline to complete the splicing.
Next, I added the full music, aligned the overall audio and video, checked for smooth transitions, and finally exported the final version and uploaded it to our group's shared folder. Afterward, each group member uploaded it to YouTube, saved the link to their personal Google Drive, and completed their blog.
This collaboration made one thing clearer to me: the real challenge in Kinetic Typography isn't "knowing how to create motion effects," but "knowing how to make the motion effects have a reason," especially ensuring the text is truly synchronized with the music's rhythm and the lyrics' emotion. After receiving feedback from the instructor and revising, I clearly felt the work was more mature and more like a complete "visual rhythmic expression."
3. OUTCOME - SUBMISSION
The YouTube Link:
Our Group Drive Link - Group D Pink:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hs53I1a4OYjG_T-URNJPXCGtIpgG5wv
- Final Submission:
4. FEEDBACK
1. One of the tricks to kinetic typography is listening to the melody and rhythm of the music. While some of the animation in your work effectively reflects the corresponding musical rhythm, there are still areas where the animation could be improved. You could add some strobe and 'glitch' visual effects at musical points to better express the rhythm.
2. Since you're responsible for the ending, you could add your group's name as part of the text animation in the final font animation.
5. REFLECTION
Experience
This Kinetic Typography assignment felt like a real-life small-scale production project to me. We started by having a meeting to divide the work, define the style (color scheme and font), and I also broke the entire song down into six MP3s based on each person's assigned section, making it easier for everyone to check the timing. When I was working on my four lines of lyrics, I first drew a storyboard draft, because if you don't think things through beforehand, it's easy to just add random animations in After Effects.
In the first round of production, my goal was simply to "make it work and be able to showcase it": lyrics aligned, rhythm roughly in sync, and visuals not too far off track. Because time was really limited, we needed to show it to the instructor and get feedback first. Later, the instructor gave suggestions, and I started the second round of revisions: to better match the music's beat and to use a thinner font. I then realized that changing one thing affected many things, especially the font; changing it altered the layout and spacing, and the animation keyframes also needed to be readjusted. Those few days were basically spent revising, aligning, and testing simultaneously.
Observations
First, kinetic typography isn't simply about "making the text move," but about making it move in sync with the music. If the rhythm isn't right, the visuals will appear to float or move randomly. When I started using strong beats for entry points and pauses for emphasis, the whole piece immediately felt more like a performance, "performing to the music."
Second, the font's impact is greater than I expected. Bold fonts look powerful, but in fast-paced or densely formatted sections, they can appear heavy and cramped. Thin fonts are more refined, but they are extremely sensitive to letter spacing, line spacing, and alignment. After changing the font, what I initially thought was a smooth flow suddenly became unbalanced, so I had to readjust the spacing and animation pauses.
Third, the most common pitfall in group projects is actually transitions. Each individual section might look good, but without a unified way of connecting them, the overall effect is like "six segments pieced together." Therefore, besides ensuring each individual section is well-structured, we also need to consider how to seamlessly connect the preceding and following segments.
Findings
My biggest takeaway from this assignment is that Kinetic Typography is more like a combination of "musical rhythm + layout design + animation control," rather than simply applying effects. If I were to do it again, I would like to improve it in the following ways:
- Treat the musical beats as the framework: Mark the strong beats, pauses, and transitions first, then decide how the text should enter, emphasize, and exit. This will give the animation a stronger rationale and make it easier to control.
- Test the font early on, don't change it later: Changing the font will affect spacing, center of gravity, and rhythm, making revisions increasingly painful later.
- Treat transitions as a group "hard rule": Agree on how to end, how to start the next paragraph, and whether to continue the background beforehand, at least ensuring the entire video looks like a complete work, not a patchwork.
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