# Kinetic Typography Animation in After Effects - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/kinetic-typography-animation-in-after-effects/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Video & Animation · Solid intro · Rated 6 /10 # Kinetic Typography Animation in After Effects Updated August 2026 Klarens Malluta · Visual Artist Beginner · 89 min A dense 89-minute effects walkthrough with 13 techniques and zero plugins, but it never once shows a finished, exported project. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fkinetic-typography-animation-in-after-effects%2F778582891) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. ## What it actually covers The course moves through thirteen short lessons that build in complexity: it opens with a two-minute font-sourcing detour (dafont.com, a couple of free grunge-style typefaces), then spends the bulk of its runtime inside After Effects working through a menu of distortion and motion techniques. The throughline is technical rather than narrative. Each lesson picks one effect, applies it to a text layer, and shows a handful of parameter tweaks, with almost no discussion of composition, pacing, or why a given look might suit a given brand or mood. The strongest stretch is the middle section. Converting text to shapes via "create shapes from text" so individual letter paths can be pulled and stretched is a useful, transferable skill, and it is taught carefully, including a callout of a common mistake (selecting the wrong path segment on the letter E). The Echo effect lesson is similarly hands-on, showing that Echo does nothing without an underlying position or depth animation to clone, then layering in 3D rotation for a more dimensional trail. The grid-text lesson, which uses CC Repetile and an Offset effect to tile a small text composition into a scrolling field, is the clearest example of the course's real ambition: that grid becomes the base for ten separate distortion presets shown back to back, from CC Sphere and CC Lens to Polar Coordinates and Bulge, each demonstrated for under a minute. ## Where it thins out That ten-effects lesson is also where the course's weakness shows most clearly. Effects are dragged onto the layer, one or two sliders are nudged, and the instructor moves on, often saying some version of "I'm not going to spend too much time on this." For a beginner-level course, that pace assumes a viewer who already knows what convergence, radius, or interpolation parameters generally do in After Effects, since little conceptual grounding is offered beyond trial and error. The Time Displacement lesson is the one place where real technical depth appears, walking through rendering an alpha-channel video and using it as a displacement source, but it is dropped into the middle of the course without much setup and could easily lose a true beginner. The course also never assembles its individual demonstrations into a finished piece. Every lesson ends with a short isolated clip rather than contributing to a cumulative project, and the final lesson is a thirty-second sign-off with no recap, no exported reel, and no discussion of how to combine techniques or time them to music, despite kinetic typography's close association with audio-driven cuts. Given that the Skillshare blurb promises "more than 20 variations," the course does technically deliver on effect count, but it delivers them as a checklist rather than as a cohesive skillset. ## Bottom line This works as a technique reference for someone already comfortable in After Effects who wants a fast survey of distortion presets and shape-based text animation to mix into their own work. It is a weaker fit as a first course in either After Effects or kinetic typography, since fundamentals like easing philosophy, timing to music, and finishing a project are largely assumed or skipped. The standout The Time Displacement lesson, which renders an animated text layer with alpha, feeds it as a texture into a Fractal Noise-driven displacement map, and distorts a separate text layer with it, a genuinely non-obvious compositing workflow. ## What you will learn - · Convert text to editable shapes and animate individual letter paths for a stretch effect - · Build a looping Echo effect using position, 3D depth, and rotation keyframes - · Distort text with Turbulent Displace, CC Mercury, and a rendered-alpha Time Displacement pass - · Construct a repeating grid of text using CC Repetile and Offset as a base layer - · Apply ten distortion presets (CC Sphere, CC Lens, Bulge, Polar Coordinates, and others) to that grid - · Wrap text around a CC Cylinder and mask it against an animated gradient shape Best for: An After Effects user who already knows the interface and wants a fast tour of distortion presets and text-to-shape tricks to remix into their own kinetic type projects. Skip it if: A true beginner who has never opened After Effects, since menus, panels, and basic keyframing are assumed rather than explained. Clarity of Instruction Actionable Steps Helpful Examples Organization of Lessons [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Fkinetic-typography-animation-in-after-effects%2F778582891)