Using text, Chapter 7 – Apple Motion 3 User Manual
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Using Text
Text, one of the most essential motion graphics elements, is 
more powerfully customizable than ever in Motion.
In motion graphics, typography communicates much more than just basic 
information—titles, dates, and tag lines. Visual and kinetic type on the screen can also 
provoke an immediate and often powerful emotional response. A title sequence can 
set the mood of the film it introduces. A specific combination of text and animation 
can instantly identify a broadcast network. And a clever television interstitial can 
prevent a bored viewer from flipping channels during a commercial break. Type design 
is an art form. Just look at the opening title sequence by Friz Freleng for Blake Edwards’ 
The Pink Panther. Freleng’s animated titles—featuring a design and graphics style that 
holds up even today, more than 40 years later—not only set the comic tone for a film 
franchise, it launched the (virtual) career of an animated icon (with a little help from 
Henry Mancini’s suave theme music).
Although trends in type design change, the balanced use of type and graphics remains 
the key to achieving the right effect in commercials, documentaries, television and film 
titles, broadcast logos, corporate presentations, or your own personal video projects.
No matter what style your project requires, Motion provides unique text animation 
tools that offer immediate results.