Transforming Type

New Directions in Kinetic Typography

Barbara Brownie

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780857855664
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Diseño
• Subtopic: Diseño general

Transforming Type examines kinetic or moving type in a range of fields including film credits, television idents, interactive poetry and motion graphics. As the screen increasingly imitates the properties of real-life environments, typographic sequences are able to present letters that are active and reactive. These environments invite new discussions about the difference between motion and change, global and local transformation, and the relationship between word and image. In this illuminating study, Barbara Brownie explores the ways in which letterforms transform on screen, and the consequences of such transformations. Drawing on examples including Kyle Cooper's title sequence design, kinetic poetry and MPC's idents for the UK's Channel 4, she differentiates motion from other kinds of kineticism, with particular emphasis on the transformation of letterforms into other forms and objects, through construction, parallax and metamorphosis. She proposes that each of these kinetic behaviours requires us to revisit existing assumptions about the nature of alphabetic forms and the spaces in which they are found.

PART ONE

Mapping the field: Categories of kineticism

1

What is kineticism?

Typography in temporal media

Increasingly, graphical signs including letterforms are being integrated into film and television. These two elements were once distinct, as directly filmed content was visibly different from graphical overlay. Now, however, on-screen typography is so effectively integrated into background environments that it is often treated similarly to any other visually recorded subject. It has become so complex that it is capable of dynamic performance.

Temporal media offer typographers opportunities to “dramatize” type, for letterforms to become “fluid” and “kinetic” (Woolman and Bellantoni, 1999; Kac, 1997; Engel et al., 2000). Film title credits present typographic information over time, often bringing it to life through animation. Motion graphics, particularly the brand identities of film and television production companies, increasingly contain animated type. Type is often overlaid onto music videos and advertisements, often set in motion following the rhythm of a soundtrack. Temporal typography is also increasingly found in experimental works, such as animated concrete poetry.

In temporal media, there is often a requirement to display information in text form. Largely, such text is informative (listing cast and crew of films and television shows, providing further details about an advertised product, or labeling content). As these are largely creative media, on-screen typography has developed to become expressive, helping to establish the tone of associated content or express a set of brand values. In title sequences, typography must prepare the audience for the film by evoking a certain mood. In an ident or bumper, it must express the brand values of a corporation. It may do this using the conventions of print, such as choice of typeface or color, but may also utilize a set of tools that are exclusive to temporal environments, such as expressive motion. To suit temporal output, much of this expression is achieved through kineticism. Letters become “a theatrical component” that can be brought to life through motion (Helfand, 1997 [1994], p. 51).

Fundamental to most examples of temporal typography is the notion that typography can be visually as well as verbally expressive. This notion has been subject to fierce discussion in the field of printed typography, with conflicting views from modernist and postmodern typographers over the merits of type as a verbal or visual form of communication. Those who adhered to the modernist view (Jan Tschichold and Beatrice Warde in particular) proposed that the primary purpose of typography was to communicate clear linguistic messages. Whereas, more recent practitioners including Neville Brody and David Carson have explored typography that is visually expressive, with stylistic features that enhance or interfere with linguistic clarity. In the temporal environment, this debate is still applicable, but complexified by the potential for kinetic expression. Traditional, static characteristics, such as “bold and italic,” offer only a fraction of the expressive potential of dynamic properties (ibid., pp. 49–50). Indeed, the use of kineticism in temporal typography is a tacit admission that typography can convey more than just linguistic meaning. Letterforms that jump and dance can convey joy, those that slump can convey sorrow, and those that vibrate can convey frustration. All of these messages are expressed in addition to whatever linguistic meaning is denoted by the word itself.

These expressive capabilities were initially explored in early stop-motion animation, including George Méliès’ “animated letterforms” for advertisements in 1899 (Woolman and Bellantoni, 1999, p. 7). Over the course of the twentieth century, other temporal media began to feature typography, and to utilize potential for kinetic expression. In 1903, Edwin S. Porter’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin contained the first intertitles: “animated, filmic intertitles, with swirling or moving letters that formed words” (Ivarsson, 2004). Cinema audiences had their first experiences of title sequences in the 1950s. Saul Bass turned lists of credits into dynamic, typographic events when he developed his first title sequence for Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones (1954). As Bass—and later imitators—explored the potential of typography in credit sequences, other temporal media also continued to develop kinetic typographic expression. Norman McLaren’s advertisement for the Canadian Tourist Board (1961), featured animated letterforms that were “dramatized,” to the extent that they were given the characteristic “swagger” of comedy performers (Hutchings, 1964, cited in Woolman and Bellantoni, 1999, p. 8). What was notable about all of these early examples is that they were not generated digitally.

Many contemporary examples of temporal typography are computer generated. Digital technology does offer tools to make typographic animation quickly and easily, to the extent that many commentators view kinetic typography as a recent innovation that has arisen directly as a consequence of “digital environments” (Ikonen, 2003; Hostetler, 2006; Small, 1999). However, temporal typography is not just a product of the digital age. On-screen typography is frequently not generated by computers. It is possible to produce temporal typography using directly filmed objects and stop-motion techniques. Indeed, there are numerous examples which pre-date digital technology. George Méliès’ “animated letterforms,” for example, appeared on the analog screen in the nineteenth century (Woolman and Bellantoni, 1997, p. 7). Such examples demonstrate the use of manual techniques for screen-based artifacts long before the emergence of recent digital technology. Throughout the twentieth century, practitioners continued to develop manual and analog techniques to animate lettering and typography, including celebrated titles sequences of Saul Bass and Robert Brownjohn.

When Saul and Elaine Bass produced the opening credits for Alcoa Premier (1961), their subject was a static model, filmed directly from life. The camera navigates around a physical model of an urban landscape to reveal letters hidden within. In this example, the model landscape is static, but the viewer’s experience of this artifact is temporal. Through filming, the static objects are transformed into a temporal event. Robert Brownjohn’s sequence for From Russia With Love (1963) was similarly dependent on real-life objects and events. In Brownjohn’s titles, the opening credits are projected onto the body of a belly dancer. The dancer’s movement causes it to stretch and skew as it flows across the curves of her body. Made illegible by this distortion, the text can only be read once the dancer has moved away, and the type lands on a flat backdrop. Although this sequence involves projected forms, and is viewed on screen, its production involved only analogue technologies, and is notable in its minimal use of contemporaneous technology. Brownjohn described his method as “instant opticals,” in reference to the immediacy of the filmed sequence in contrast to the lengthy laboratory processes that had previously been used to create credit sequences (King, 1993).

Bass and Brownjohn’s use of real-life objects was a creative choice, not a necessity imposed by the limitations of technology available at the time. From the 1960s, “the possibilities of moving text” were developed in many “hybrid forms,” electronically combining written text with video and film, electronics, and digital technology. “Video poetry was developed by, among others, E. M. Melo e Castro, Richard Kostelantz and Arnaldo Antunes from the ‘60s onwards” (Ikonen, 2003). Notable artifacts included Poem Fields (1964–6), computer-generated typographic animations by Stan Vanderbeek and Ken Knowlton.

Even contemporary practitioners do not always restrain themselves to the possible outcomes allowed by software. Many have chosen to use manual techniques, finding that they produce a gritty irregularity that is a pleasing contrast to the crisp perfection of digitally generated contours. Kyle Cooper, whose work will be addressed in more detail in Chapter 8, is celebrated for varying his style and methods. For the title sequence for Seven (David Fincher, 1995) he created lettering by manually scratching into film stock. The resultant writing had expressivity that would have been impossible to achieve with a digital typeface. Even 3D temporal typography can be created without digital intervention. Sculptural letters, that are real-life objects, can be subjected to manual treatments, and those processed can be filmed directly.

Dan Pedley’s “Q Fire” provides contemporary evidence that temporal typography can be created using manual techniques. This piece is a directly filmed sequence, in which matches arranged to form the shape of a “Q” are set alight (see Plate 1). As the matches ignite one another, a flame spreads around the contours of the letter. Though this domino effect is staged, there is no digital interference. The unpredictability of real fire gives the sequence irregularity that would be difficult to replicate in clinical digital alternatives.

Since such examples do not require digital technology in their production, temporal typography cannot be considered to be entirely technologically motivated. However, it is through digital technology that such examples reach their audience. The surge in the number of available examples may be less due to the technology of production, and more a result of new methods of distribution, mostly online via YouTube, Vimeo and other video-sharing sites. Videos gathered on YouTube provide a wide variety of creative output as well as video tutorials aimed at sharing temporal typography techniques with audiences. As Neil Bennet (2007) observes, regardless of the method of production, it is “output” media and new distribution channels that have “helped to evolve the medium of motion typography,” expanding audiences and increasing awareness among designers of the possibilities of typographic behaviors. Temporal typography is no longer viewed as a prelude to a larger artifact (as in credit sequences), or a bumper between shows (as in television idents), rather it is deemed worthy of viewing and sharing as a standalone creative artifact.

Temporal typography

The screen is a site for many forms of typography. Static type is located in word processing packages, within documents, and websites. In these environments, type is susceptible to change at the user’s instruction, as new fonts and sizes are selected, but is not otherwise “temporal.” Temporal typography is distinct from other forms of on-screen typography as it is situated within temporal media (such as film and television). Its state is directly affected by time, as its appearance is linked to a particular moment within a sequence.

In 1995 and 1996, Y. Y. Wong produced the first extensive analyses of “temporal typography,” in which she characterized the many forms of temporal behaviors that can be observed in late-twentieth-century on-screen typography. Wong identified that temporal typography is not simply type on screen, rather type that performs in ways that it cannot on the printed page.

Typography on screen, including temporal typography, does feature many of the key characteristics of typography and lettering in print forms. Color, size, typeface, and layout are as much a concern for the temporal typographer as for the traditional graphic designer. However, Wong (1995, p. 8) warns of the dangers of classifying temporal typography in the same terms as print. She recognizes that temporal typography introduces new “issues” which did not exist in print, and which therefore require new methods of analysis and description.

Serial presentation

In temporal media, typography has the potential to diverge from print. We can no longer simply classify type according to its appearance (qualities such as font, size, color), as in temporal environments those static properties are overshadowed by behaviors: qualities of movement and change (ibid., p. 11). Temporal behaviors, including “flashing” or “blinking,” directional motion, distortion or transformation, provide additional expressive tools for the typographer (Bork, 1983, p. 207). These behaviors are exclusive to temporal environments, and invite us to assess typography in new ways.

One key contribution of Wong’s study of temporal typography is that she differentiates between kinetic typography and type that happens to exist in a temporal environment but is otherwise static. Many examples of type within film and television do not display motion of any kind. Title cards, “initially the only method for putting type on the screen,” are printed typographic designs, directly filmed (Wong, 1995, p. 15). Static title cards, television test cards, and other static arrangements can be assessed in similar terms to printed equivalents. They are designed with the same tools as a printed piece of typography, and the fact that they are captured for temporal display is almost incidental.

Wong identifies this serial presentation as distinct from typography which exhibits motion or change. Serial presentation, though existing in temporal media, presents a series of still ...