SGER: Enabling Creativity Using Kinetic Typography

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This project enhances the expressive ability of the fundamental medium of text with the development of tools that enhance the creativity of people while generating kinetic typography. Traditional forms of static typography can be augmented with time and motion, in order to manipulate the position, size, color, shape, and other properties of text displays over time. This new kinetic typography offers a number of potential advantages: the ability to convey emotional content and qualities of the speaker's voice, the potential for increased reading performance on very small displays, and the ability to communicate in new ways. These advantages have been largely unexploited because the technological tools needed to make kinetic typography easily accessible to both designers and the general public have only begun to be developed. This project explores the nature of tools that enhance human creativity in the context of generating kinetic text. The impact of this work will reach well beyond kinetic typography, with implications for understanding the design process, emotional communication, and creativity. This research will extend our basic knowledge of communication and information transfer, and give us a foundation for understanding and creating kinetic typography tools, with long-term implications for work in design schools and training environments.