Animography Animates Alphabets

The FontFeed occasionally covers animated typography in motion graphics, music videos, commercials, title sequences and so on. Yet this is something special. Instead of having static letters move on the screen, the letters themselves are animated in the alphabets offered by Animography. This type foundry offers animated typefaces to motion designers, video editors, basically anyone working with moving images. Provided in the form of easy-to-use, resolution-independent Adobe After Effects files, each glyph comes in a separate composition, with a controller-composition serving as a central point from which you can customize all the glyphs in one go. The effect is quite surprising and provides exciting new possibilities for typographic expression. Last week Animography launched its most ambitious project to date – Franchise Animated, a typeface animated by 110 different animators, one for each glyph.

Animography Opening from Animography on Vimeo.

Animography (short for "animated typography") is the brainchild of Calango, a small multidisciplinary design studio in Amsterdam specialising in motion and graphic design. Most of the typefaces were designed and/or animated by Jeroen Krielaars himself who is completely self-taught in design and animation. As he describes it himself, he learned everything through the years simply by looking around and observing, and by experimenting a lot. Some projects originated by animating typefaces from other designers, like Razor by Jeffrey Schreiber, or by bringing people together like animator Oliver Dead with (again) type designer Jeffrey Schreiber, which resulted in Fat Frank Animated.

Franchise Animated – Promo from Animography on Vimeo.

110 talented animators from all over the world collaborated to animate this compact sans serif design by Derek Weathersbee. Calango asked every animator to pick a glyph and animate it using no more than 4 colours, 25 frames and a 500 × 600 px canvas in Adobe After Effects. The animators had complete freedom to work their magic within those 25 frames. The result is a wide variety of styles and techniques, tied together by the colour palette and letter forms. As the file contains all the key frames, expressions and artwork from the artists, this project doubles up as a great learning source for motion students and professionals.

Below are Animography's other offerings, each with their own distinct personality and animation.

Anodine – Animated Typeface from Animography on Vimeo.

The multi-coloured straight lines of Anodine's minimalist square glyphs spring into action like rubber bands.

Binary – Animated Typeface from Animography on Vimeo.

Binary 2.0 is the new, improved, expanded and animated version of Binary, a typeface by Maria Jose Torrero Heredia. This Art Deco-inspired design comes in solid and outline variants.

Huboost – Animated Typeface from Animography on Vimeo.

The spirit of iconic Dutch graphic designer Wim Crouwel is strong in the compact minimalist display sans Huboost.

Moshun – Animated Typeface from Animography on Vimeo.

Moshun is the first animated typeface by Calango. The simple but elegant animations beautifully exploit the multilinear treatment of its extra bold geometric character shapes, with a hint of Bifur.

Spirograph Promo from Animography on Vimeo.

The condensed design of Spirograph is inspired by sans serif skyline faces; its spinning motion by the well-known drawing toy developed by British engineer Denys Fisher and first sold in 1965.

Typogami – Animated Typeface from Animography on Vimeo.

When typography and origami make sweet love, you end up with Typogami after nine months. This animated typeface in 2.5 dimensions is reminiscent of René Knip & Janno Hahn's Slingerletters.

Fat Frank – Animated Typeface from Animography on Vimeo.

The friendly, big-boned Fat Frank references geometric sans serifs of the early 20th century.

Webster – Animated Typeface from Animography on Vimeo.

With 13 customisable features, the faceted neo-grotesque Webster can adopt countless different looks.

Razor – Animated Typeface from Animography on Vimeo.

The lines in the eighties-inspired geometric display sans Razor lend themselves perfectly to the simple yet effective animation.