Style combination · Contrasts

Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay × Kinetic Typography

Kinetic type is one designer's choreographed letters; danmaku is hundreds of identical-default lines from strangers. Decide whether motion type should feel authored or crowd-made before borrowing either.

From the research on Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay

Mix them and make something Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay Kinetic Typography

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay, their arrangement from Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay, the finish from Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay Kinetic Typography & Variable Type

Type from Kinetic Typography: Type as image
Experimental & distorted
Colour from Kinetic Typography: Monochrome
Limited spot colours
Form from Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay: Ornament-free
Composition from Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay: Layered information
Repetition & rhythm
Surface from Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay: Hard offset shadow
Flat

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Kinetic Typography

Wow

Inter Tight, standing in for Variable grotesques with weight and width axes (e.g. Roboto Flex)

Text · Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay

The bullet-comment layer of Japanese and Chinese video sites, begun on Niconico in December 2006 and taken up by AcFun and Bilibili in 2008–2009. Viewers' one-line comments fly across the playing video from right to left, or sit centred at the top or bottom, each timed to the moment it answers. By default every line is the same white, black-outlined sans at one size; commands add saturated RGB colours and sizes, and viewers set opacity and speed. At climaxes identical lines pile into a 'bullet curtain' over the picture: anonymous crowd writing laid over someone else's image.

Zen Kaku Gothic New; Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay used Arial for Latin letters and digits, then MS PGothic (ＭＳＰゴシック) for Japanese, at weight 600 and The 'gothic' and 'mincho' font commands of Niconico's later player

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Kinetic Typography, with a counter-accent from Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay Kinetic Typography & Variable Type

#0b0b0b ground · 36%
#f3f3ef ink · 14%
#ff3d1f accent · 18%
#ff0000 accent · 14%
#2b3dff accent · 10%
#ffff00 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #0b0b0b;
  --ink: #f3f3ef;
  --accent-1: #ff3d1f;
  --accent-2: #ff0000;
  --accent-3: #2b3dff;
  --accent-4: #ffff00;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Zen Kaku Gothic New", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay: Danmaku is moving text that starts on its own, runs longer than five seconds and sits on top of other content, so any design that uses it needs a way to pause, hide or thin it (WCAG 2.2.2, which is why platforms build an off switch) and must keep it clear of faces and captions. Real comments are other people's words over footage someone else owns: write your own lines rather than lifting screenshots, and do not fake an audience's enthusiasm in advertising. A live comment layer can also be used to pile abuse on people, and in mainland China the China Netcasting Services Association's rules for short-video platforms of 9 January 2019 require danmaku to be reviewed before it is shown, so moderate any live use.

The two styles

2006–present · East Asia Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay The bullet-comment layer of Japanese and Chinese video sites, begun on Niconico in December 2006 and taken up by AcFun and Bilibili in 2008–2009. Viewers' one-line comments fly across the playing video from right to left, or sit centred at the top or bottom, each timed to the moment it answers. By default every line is the same white, black-outlined sans at one size; commands add saturated RGB colours and sizes, and viewers set opacity and speed. At climaxes identical lines pile into a 'bullet curtain' over the picture: anonymous crowd writing laid over someone else's image.

The word “PHASE” fills the square in extremely tall, heavy letters on black. Repeated, warped outlines shrink toward a horizontal middle line, with off-white fading into orange-red above and vivid blue filling most of the lower half.

2016–present · Global / networked, North America, Western Europe Kinetic Typography & Variable Type Typography as the moving image: letterforms that stretch, squash, rotate and morph along variable-font axes, loop seamlessly and cut to the beat of music, used for identities, social-media posters and digital out-of-home screens. Enabled by OpenType variable fonts (2016) and popularised by studios such as DIA, it treats a typeface with axes and a motion toolkit, not a fixed logo, as the core of a brand.

More combinations

With Danmaku Bullet-Comment Overlay

With Kinetic Typography

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