Critical Analysis on “Kinetic Typography – Based Instant Messaging” by Kerry Bodine & Mathilde Pignol.

This article on ‘Kinetic Typography’ is one of the best ones I have come through in my research. Typography can be related to many things in today’s life, like typography in design, typography in branding, typography in publishing, color etc. But typography and emotion is something I found that was quite interesting and unique.

Expressing emotions through type is quite challenging, as the emotion expressed should be conveyed properly to the receiver or the audience. A standard emotion that everybody should understand is something quite tricky and something that emoticons also today aren’t able to do in today’s world. Expressing it through type and the essential elements of type such as size, font, placement of text that are used to experiment with to attain the required emotion is indeed something very intriguing.

This article titled ‘Kinetic Typography – Based Instant Messaging’, talks about kinetic typography which is a new form of expression that is emerging because it can add intensity to the emotional content of a text. The authors of this article have explored on how kinetic typography can improve the way people communicate using instant messaging. They have created the KIM – Kinetic Instant Messenger that aids in creating kinetic typography and provides solution to various design issues related to kinetic typography and instant messaging. The authors state that ‘kinetic typography is typography that doesn’t stand still’ that can be found in film titles, videos, television, commercials, advertisements, web pages etc. Kinetic typography is said to convey the emotion, personality and tone of voice at better intensity. Yet, it is not much explored due to the issues in creating kinetic type with the tools available today. With limited tools available, there are quite few difficulties in creating kinetic type efficiently although it is being resolved.

Emoticons are usually used highly in instant messaging, they convey the tone and character of the text sent, but when compared to kinetic typography it conveys the emotions much better than emoticons can express. Emoticons express limited expression only, which cant put forth or rather convey the exact way it was being sent in. The authors have taken an example of taking up a phrase and using kinetic effects such as changing the size, changing the position and alignment of text, of which they conclude that a phrase normally can be interpreted as neutral, position and rotation could showcase positive moods, size and capitalization could indicate anger or annoyance. For example, adding a small vibration to the word “help” can convey a sense of fear and anxiety.

The KIM integrates kinetic typography with instant messaging, it is a system based upon kinetic typography engine and Kinedict, an authoring tool for kinetic typography. The author argues that there are challenges in design associated with integrating kinetic typography with instant messaging. The fact that users take very little time in composing their message in instant messaging before being sent also requires the kinetic typography tool to also minimize the time it would take for users to add effects to their message. Another challenge stated is the multitasking and less concentration on the conversation by the user, which doesn’t require constant attention. The messages are listed in a window that the user is given the ability to scroll up to read messages that are missed. The author also argues that there is a balance between highly expressive text and less expressive text and the text’s motion is what catches one’s attention and conveys emotion. But there is a conflict here, if an user were not focused on the KIM client when the message was received, the user would probably miss it.

The article discusses about the functionality of KIM. It gives solutions to the design challenges stated above. It mentions the keystroke shortcuts that allow clients to preview, format and send messages. The issue of non-constant messages is also resolved by the creation of a conversation log. The conversation log also provides a lot of playback options. The functions of these controls are set up like the ones on a video or music player and are made to suit kinetic typography’s momentary nature. Controls are ‘rewind’ and ‘fast forward’ are also available to witness a specific image to be re-animated.

The article further discusses that KIM provides users with four different effects such as :

1. Hop (text that jumps from the bottom and return to the bottom of the screen)
2. Yell (text that zooms in and shakes)
3. Slide (text that scrolls across the screen horizontally)
4. Construct ( single letters rotating and slowly converging in the middle of the screen)

Whereas when the user doesn’t select any effect, ‘Hop’ acts as the default option.

According to my point of view, KIM is a really good form which would connect typography with emotion. Increase in depth and character of messages sent, makes the communication more effective. In a regular face-to-face conversation, more than just
words are spoken. The tone of speech, body language and rhythm of one’s voice,
all help to convey emotion in addition to information required to be passed on. However, in a text the only possible communication medium such as instant messaging, this ability is lost .Proper communication is very essential for inter-personal relationships these days. Helps by putting forward issues exactly like the way they want to be conveyed and it is the most effective type of communication in terms of instant messaging. But if it ends up being user-friendly and convenient definitely I would think it is one of the best tools for instant messaging.

The article adds that kinetic typography has the capacity to dramatically add up to the way people convey emotions while instant messaging. KIM builds on Kinedit, which is the authoring tool for kinetic typography that provides the users to add kinetic typography effects to their messages instantly using keyboard shortcuts. This ensures that the emotional content of conversation doesn’t get lost. The authors also state that during testing they were able to send highly effective messages back and forth through KIM. The author ends the article on the note that there is work that remains to be done on KIM; more work that would enable users to edit properties such as speed and size.