Kinetic typography
Kinetic typography is the technique of making text itself carry meaning through movement.
Also known as: animated typography · moving type · text animation
Letters arriving one by one, a word changing weight, a line sliding into place. The movement is not decoration: it sets emphasis and pace, the way a voice does when a sentence is spoken.
It works in short, deliberate places — an opening statement, a section heading, a single number. Applied to a paragraph it becomes unreadable.
When to use it
When it makes sense
On a headline, a claim, an opening sentence — where there are few words and each one carries weight.
When it is unnecessary
On body text. Nobody wants to wait for a paragraph to assemble itself before reading it.
Common questions
Can search engines read animated text?
Yes, as long as the text is in the HTML and the animation only changes its appearance. Text drawn into a canvas is a different matter — that cannot be read.
What about screen readers?
They read the underlying text and ignore the animation, provided the text is real text and not an image. Splitting words into letters for animation needs care: the accessible label must stay whole.
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