Typography - Kinetic Design

I like the concept of creative movement; in technical communication, in visual design studies, and in life. As a way of exploring the importance of type choice in visual design, I recently had the opportunity to view several videos on the subject of typography. I would like to share with you one particular video that exemplifies how typography can be used as a type of mask to redirect one's focus and attention. The video begins with the contradiction of asking a masked man who he is, and then uses the visual design principles of harmony and emphasis to direct and shape the movement of the eye towards that answer.

The video that I selected reminds me of a game I used to play with one of my sisters, where we would frame all of our conversations, for one entire day, in the form of song lyrics; no matter whom we talked to, or about what subject, all of our responses had to be taken from the words of a song. When playing that game, we discovered that limiting our expressiveness to just one form of reference eventually created its own special cadence to our conversations, and brought that measured movement to our thought processes.

As you watch the video, you can see how the type floats and dances, using harmony of color (a maroon background with starkly white typography as contrast) along with harmony of sound to build a work of art using kinetic design. (According to WikiAnswers, kinetic design is: "a type of streamline design that makes use of straight edges and trapezoids." )

The presentation of the printed words acts much like the sword of the fictional character Zorro, as the words in the video slice and re-combine into the primary letter shape that is the featured focus of the piece. The choice of type that is used creates its own sense of movement by increasing and decreasing in size, as the words increase and decrease in pitch and emphasis.



In harmony with the pitch of the voice, the type used in the video starts and ends each phrase from different points within the layout, and by focusing the senses towards one particular letter, the presentation creates a visual home for the eye and an auditory home for the ear.

The video uses the flow of the mellifluously spoken words and the rhythmic flow of the letters to empasize how complexity can be born from simplicity, and how harmony in design can be created by the blend of both senses working together to achieve a single goal:
the lasting impression of the letter V.