Typography and Motion Graphics The Reading- Image
Michael Betancourt
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First published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Michael Betancourt
The right of Michael Betancourt to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data [CIP data]
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 02928- 9 (hbk) ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 02930- 2 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman by Out of House Publishing
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Motion Typography
Formal aesthetic criteria provide only a partial understanding of how movement and typography interact; the present study emerges from the question, How is typography in motion graphics different from graphic design? Refl ecting on this ontological question leads to a con- sideration of the role that kinesis (movement on- screen) has for typ- ography and graphic elements as a corollary to their lexical structure. Animated typography creates a profusion of new meanings linked to its semiosis, which the reading- image identifi es as a dramatization of the recognition process being visualized on- screen (what has been described as an affect 1 of Schriftfi lme [ textfi lm ] 2 motion pictures in which text becomes image- in- motion). This excess to lexical meaning complements the familiar role of written language: movement is an enunciative action the audience interprets fl uently based on their past experiences with static and motion typography, and which refl ects their established lexical and interpretive profi ciency with rendering visual perceptions into the categories of graphics, imagery, and typography.
Specifi c to motion graphics, if not a necessary and suffi cient condi- tion of its defi nition, motion typography is a prominent and common feature. 3 Although the formal morphology and structure of static design appears in the various uses and applications of on- screen typo/ graphics, this convergence is a symptom of the challenges it offers for static design. Motion graphics are not just graphic design plus anima- tion. 4 Instead, motion graphics are primarily concerned with the new semiosis that structured time offers to design, arrangement, and pres- entation on- screen. The differences that actual, literal time and motion make for design are, ultimately, conclusive.
Contemporary digital animation software generates a broad spec- trum of animations for typography, including the shape- changing of individual letterforms in animorphs, as well as the visual effects (VFX) compositing of typography within live action footage. 5 Books on the production techniques for motion typography reveal a consistent
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Motion Typography 3
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