Kinetic Typography Tutorial

Table of Contents

I. Basic Editing

II. Timing Words with Voiceover

III. Animations

a. Position

b. 3D Rotation

Check out this YouTube Tutorial for more in-depth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr36RNQVFLg

(Optional step, but will allow you to be more creative with your design, such as adding textures and

distortions to the text that Adobe After Effects can’t do.) Design kinetic typography in Adobe Photoshop

or Adobe Illustrator.

When designing in Photoshop/ Illustrator, organize different slides of animation into different

artboards. Example of how I organize my design into artboards in Photoshop:

If designed in Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop, the design file must be imported to Adobe

After Effects. Watch this video to learn how:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ-P1kdKFL0

I. Basic Editing

1) In Adobe After Effects, open up a New Project. Next, go to Composition->New Composition:

2) A Composition Settings dialog box will pop up. Fill in the name of the video in the “Composition

Name” box. The background color of the video changed by clicking on the colored rectangle

clock next to “Background Color.” The following picture shows the settings I used. The Duration

can be adjusted to fit with the length of the video. Choose a longer time to allow more work

space. It can be changed later.

3) Open the up the “Character” panel. Go to Window->Character on the top menu bar to make

sure it is open. The panel should appear on the far right. This is the most important panel

because it will allow you to control the text size, color, font, font style, leading, kerning, and

tracking of the text.

4) Now we will start applying text to the composition. Click on the Text tool (tool with the letter

“T”) on horizontal menu bar at the top.

5) Next, click on the Composition area and a thin vertical line will appear on the composition. Begin

typing the first word of the kinetic typography.

6) Once done, click on the “Selection Tool” (the first tool starting from the left, or black arrow) on

the horizontal menu bar at the top. You will notice that the word will be surrounded by 8 small

red squares. Click and drag on one of the 4 red outermost corners and then hold Shift to control

the size of the text. Holding Shift, will constrain the size of the text and stop text distortion. The

size of the text can also be controlled on the left-hand panel that says “Character.” To control

the size of the text in the Character panel, increase/decrease the pixels (px), but make sure the

text is selected first. Click and drag the text from the middle to move the text around.

7) At the bottom of the screen you will notice 2 different panels. To the left is the “Layers” panel.

Since you created your first word on the composition, a new layer will appear in this panel

labeled after the word itself. In my case, I have a layer called “THIS.”

8) To the right of the Layers panel is the “Timeline” panel. Each layer will have a long rectangular

block associated with it in the Timeline panel. The length of the rectangular block represents the

length of time the layer appears in the video. The length of time is labeled in seconds at the top

of the Layers panel. As of now, my “THIS” layer will show up throughout the entire video. To

adjust the layer’s time, hover over one of ends of the layer until a line with two arrowheads

pointing to the left and right appear (). Next, click and drag inwards/outwards. This will

change the time duration of the layer. In my example, the “THIS” layer is adjusted to appear at 3

seconds into the video (refer to picture below).

Tip: To get the layer to line up at exactly 3 seconds, click on the time indicator located on the top

left of the Layers panel and adjust it to 3 seconds like the picture below. The timeline scrubber

(blue arrow with long vertical line running through it) will line up to exactly 3 seconds. Just adjust

the length of the layer to line up with the blue line. See picture below.

II. Timing Words with Voiceover

9) Continue doing this for the rest of the kinetic typography. Each word should have its own layer.

This will make it easier to adjust each word to match an overlaid voice recording. In the picture

below, I added several more layers to the composition.

10) Find the voice recording on your computer and click and drag it onto your Layers panel.

11) The voice recording file should have its own layer in the Layer panel. To the left of the name of

the voice recording is a little white arrow. Click on it and to expand the properties of the layer.

For the voice recording layer, there should be a property called “Waveform.” Click on the white

arrow next to that and a visual of the waveform should appear in the “Timeline” panel.

12) Press the spacebar to preview the video. Look at the waveform while listening to the audio. The

timeline scrubber (blue arrow with long vertical line running through it) will move with along the

timeline as it plays the video. To pause the video, tap on the spacebar again. Click on the blue

arrow of the timeline scrubber and drag it to play the video at different parts.

13) Now it’s time to line up the audio with the voiceover. On the bottom left corner of the Layers

panel there is a Zoom In/Zoom Out slider. Zooming in will allow you to get more detailed an

precise with your editing. Click and drag the grey slider arrow, to the right to zoom in. You will

notice that the audio waveform will expand.

14) By zooming in, you will notice peaks and dips in the waveform. Make sure your audio is on when

you preview the video, click on Window->Preview on the top navigation bar. The preview panel

will appear on the right-hand side. In the Preview Panel under “Include,” make sure the speaker

icon is highlighted blue. If not, click on it and it should turn blue.

15) Now we will focus on the Layers and Timeline panel. To line up the first word of the kinetic

typography, press the spacebar and listen to the audio while looking at the waveform. The time

scrubber line will move across the timeline as the audio plays. When the first word occurs in the

audio, find out where on the timeline it is. A good clue is to the see where the waveform rises.

Next, click and drag the timeline scrubber line to that exact point in the timeline. Then, resize

the rectangular block starting from the beginning of the block and line it up with the line of the

timeline scrubber. In the picture below, I lined up the word “THIS” against the timeline scrubber.

16) Use the waveform and timeline scrubber line to line up the rest of the words to the appropriate

place in the timeline like so:

III. Animations

17) Once your words are timed accordingly, animations can be added in. There are 4 basic

animations that can be controlled through the text’s layer: Rotation, Scale, Position, and

Opacity. Expand the layer that contains the first word of the kinetic typography by clicking on

the white arrow to the left of the layer name. You will see 2 properties: Text and Transform.

Click on the arrow next to Transform. You should see the following options:

18) Before we start animating, you will need to understand the concept of key frames. Key frames

define the starting and ending points of any smooth transition of an animation. In order to make

an animation, you will need to apply at least two key frames. The first key frame should define

the moment right before an animation and the second key frame will define the moment at the

end of the of the animation.

Position Animation

19) Let’s start with the Position animation. To the right of the Position property are two sets of

numbers, which represent coordinates. The first set is the x-coordinates and the second set is y-

coordinates. To change the first set, hover over one of the coordinates and a hand with a double

sided arrow will appear. Click and drag to the left or right to increase or decrease the number.

You will notice that the word in the composition will move as well.

20) For the Position animation, I will make the word “THIS” fly in from the top. Expand the

properties of a word layer of your choice until you see the Transform properties. Next, position

the timeline scrubber line to the beginning of where the layer starts in the timeline like so:

21) Decrease the y-coordinates until you can’t see the word in your composition.

22) Click on the stopwatch next to Position in the Layers panel to make your first key frame. The

stopwatch will turn blue and a grey diamond will appear in the timeline where your timeline

scrubber line is.

23) Move the timeline scrubber slightly over to the right. Then, move the y-coordinates back to the

original position. This will automatically create a second key frame.

24) Preview the animation by moving the timeline scrubber back to the beginning and pressing on

the spacebar. The closer the key frames are, the faster the animation will be. Adjust to your

liking.

3D Animation

25) To begin a 3D animation, you must turn on the 3D functionality in the layer. To do this, click on

the black square on the far-right located in a row of 3 black squares. A 3D square will appear. I

chose the layer called “KINETIC” to apply my 3D animation.

26) Now expand the properties of the 3d layer. You should see these options:

27) I want my text to flip in to the right. I will need to make two Y Rotation key frames to achieve

this. First, I make sure my timeline scrubber is at the beginning of the layer in the Timeline

panel. Next, I changed the Y Rotation degrees to 83 degrees and hit the stopwatch.

28) Then, I moved the timeline scrubber to the right and changed the Y rotation to 0 degrees. This

automatically sets a second keyframe.

29) Preview the animation and the word should flip in to the right. Adjust the key frames to control

speed of animation.