{"course":{"slug":"motion-and-audio","title":"Motion, Sound and Music","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/motion-and-audio","level":"intermediate","track":"create"},"lesson":{"slug":"lower-thirds-that-work","title":"Why your lower-third looks like a template","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/motion-and-audio/lower-thirds-that-work","position":14,"of":72,"minutes":10,"answer":"Animation time is not reading time: budget two and a half to three seconds of still text first, then add the entrance and exit on top.","keyIdea":"Animation time is not reading time: budget two and a half to three seconds of still text first, then add the entrance and exit on top."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## Why your name plate looks like a template\n\nBecause everything in it moves. The bar wipes in, the name flies up, the role fades from the side, a shine sweeps across, and a particle drifts past. Each choice was fine on its own. Together they say: this was assembled from parts.\n\nMotion is a way of pointing. If every element moves, nothing has been pointed at. The professional-looking version usually animates one thing and holds the rest.\n\n## Reading time is the constraint nobody budgets for\n\nA viewer needs roughly two and a half to three seconds of *still, settled* text to take in a name and a job title, longer if the name is unfamiliar to them or if they are reading in a second language, which, on the internet, is most of your audience.\n\nHere is where it goes wrong. A three-second lower-third with a 1.2-second animated entrance and a 0.8-second exit leaves one second of readable time. The name was on screen for three seconds and nobody read it. The animation is not reading time.\n\nBudget backwards: decide the hold first (three seconds), then add the in and out on top. Six seconds of lower-third feels long in the timeline and correct to a viewer.\n\n## Making the words readable\n\n### Type reveals, and how each one feels\n\n- **Opacity fade.** Neutral, safe, invisible. Good when the graphic is not the point.\n- **Mask or wipe reveal.** A rectangle scaling across the text, revealing it. Reads as printing or typing. Crisp and expensive-feeling. Animate the mask, never the letters.\n- **Position plus fade.** The most common. Keep the distance small: 8 to 16 pixels of travel, not 200. Long travel on text is the single clearest amateur signature.\n- **Per-character stagger.** Energetic, and illegible past about eight characters. Use it on one short word.\n- **Scale from 1.04 down to 1.0** with a fade. Subtle, and it reads as authority.\n\nKinetic typography (text as the main event) follows one rule: the word that changes is the word that moves. And when you cut text to a voiceover, cut on the stressed syllable rather than the word boundary. The stress is where the ear expects the beat, and matching it is the difference between text that dances with the audio and text that merely keeps up.\n\n### Where the frame is actually cut\n\nWhatever you design will be reframed. A 16:9 video becomes a 9:16 vertical clip. The platform lays its own interface over the bottom of the frame: captions, a username, a description, a row of buttons down the right edge. The lower third of a 16:9 frame is precisely where a caption bar lands.\n\nPractical rules:\n\n- Keep essential text inside the middle 80 per cent horizontally.\n- Keep it above the bottom 20 per cent, even though the name of the graphic tells you to do the opposite.\n- If the piece will be cut vertical, check it in a 9:16 crop before you build the graphics, not after.\n\nFor legibility, a drop shadow at default settings does very little. What works is a scrim: a soft dark gradient behind the text, tall and low in contrast, or a wide, very soft shadow at low opacity combined with a 1 to 2 pixel dark outline. Test it against the brightest frame the text will sit over, not an average one.\n\nFonts carry licences, and a licence for print does not always cover embedding in video. [Design foundations](/learn/design-foundations) covers choosing type; the licence question is worth a minute before you deliver a client's video.\n\n## Tools, and the caption style everyone uses\n\n### Tools, including the free ones\n\n- **DaVinci Resolve** (free): the Text+ tool is powerful: real controls, and the Fusion page underneath it for anything custom. This is the best free option by some distance.\n- **Premiere Pro**: Essential Graphics, with saved templates. Paid, and what most job ads name.\n- **Kdenlive** and **Shotcut** (free): basic title animation. Fine for a fade and a slide.\n- **Canva** (free tier): animated text presets. Limited easing, no custom curves, and completely adequate for a simple title card.\n- **CapCut** on a phone: auto-captions and text presets, free, and the fastest path if you have no laptop.\n- **CSS** for anything on the web, where a lower-third is just a positioned element with a transition.\n\n### The caption style, honestly assessed\n\nOne word at a time, large, centred, popping and colour-changing in time with the speech. It works: on a muted feed it holds attention, and the platforms' own tools generate it in one tap.\n\nIt is also hard work for anyone reading English as a second or third language, because it removes the ability to read ahead. Chunks of two to four words, held for a beat, keep most of the retention benefit and are considerably kinder. Pick deliberately rather than by default.\n\nAnd read your auto-captions. They get names, place names, technical terms and any non-English word wrong, reliably, every time.\n\n## Today\n\nMute one of your videos and watch it. If you cannot tell who is talking, what the piece is about, or what you are meant to do at the end, the graphics are decorative rather than working."},"check":{"question":"A three-second lower-third has a 1.2-second animated entrance and a 0.8-second exit. In testing, viewers consistently say they missed the guest's name. What is the real problem?","options":[{"text":"The type is too small for phone viewing, and increasing the point size will fix it.","correct":false,"tempting":"Diagnoses legibility when the text was never held still long enough to be read at any size."},{"text":"Only about one second of the three is settled, readable text, and a name plus a role needs roughly two and a half to three seconds of stillness, more for someone reading in a second language.","correct":true},{"text":"There is not enough contrast between the text and the footage behind it, so a heavier shadow is needed.","correct":false,"tempting":"Reaches for contrast when the binding constraint is how long the words are available."},{"text":"The entrance is too slow to catch the eye, and a faster, flashier animation would draw attention to the name.","correct":false,"tempting":"Spends more of a fixed budget on movement, which is the thing already crowding out the still time reading requires."}]},"prev":{"slug":"stagger-and-orchestration","title":"Staggering without making people wait","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/motion-and-audio/stagger-and-orchestration"},"next":{"slug":"motion-tokens","title":"Naming the motion so it stops drifting","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/motion-and-audio/motion-tokens"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'Why your lower-third looks like a template', in Motion, Sound and Music. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/motion-and-audio/lower-thirds-that-work (Accessed: 31 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"Why your lower-third looks like a template","courseTitle":"Motion, Sound and Music","module":{"index":2,"slug":"motion-that-carries-meaning","title":"Motion that carries meaning"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"Animation time is not reading time: budget two and a half to three seconds of still text first, then add the entrance and exit on top.","hero":{"kind":"plate","image":null,"alt":null,"caption":null},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"why-your-name-plate-looks-like-a-template","runs":[{"text":"Why your name plate looks like a template"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Because everything in it moves. The bar wipes in, the name flies up, the role fades from the side, a shine sweeps across, and a particle drifts past. Each choice was fine on its own. Together they say: this was assembled from parts."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Motion is a way of pointing. If every element moves, nothing has been pointed at. The professional-looking version usually animates one thing and holds the rest."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"reading-time-is-the-constraint-nobody-budgets-for","runs":[{"text":"Reading time is the constraint nobody budgets for"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"A viewer needs roughly two and a half to three seconds of "},{"text":"still, settled","i":true},{"text":" text to take in a name and a job title, longer if the name is unfamiliar to them or if they are reading in a second language, which, on the internet, is most of your audience."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Here is where it goes wrong. A three-second lower-third with a 1.2-second animated entrance and a 0.8-second exit leaves one second of readable time. The name was on screen for three seconds and nobody read it. The animation is not reading time."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Budget backwards: decide the hold first (three seconds), then add the in and out on top. Six seconds of lower-third feels long in the timeline and correct to a viewer."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"making-the-words-readable","runs":[{"text":"Making the words readable"}]},{"t":"h3","id":"type-reveals-and-how-each-one-feels","runs":[{"text":"Type reveals, and how each one feels"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Opacity fade.","b":true},{"text":" Neutral, safe, invisible. Good when the graphic is not the point."}],[{"text":"Mask or wipe reveal.","b":true},{"text":" A rectangle scaling across the text, revealing it. Reads as printing or typing. Crisp and expensive-feeling. Animate the mask, never the letters."}],[{"text":"Position plus fade.","b":true},{"text":" The most common. Keep the distance small: 8 to 16 pixels of travel, not 200. Long travel on text is the single clearest amateur signature."}],[{"text":"Per-character stagger.","b":true},{"text":" Energetic, and illegible past about eight characters. Use it on one short word."}],[{"text":"Scale from 1.04 down to 1.0","b":true},{"text":" with a fade. Subtle, and it reads as authority."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Kinetic typography (text as the main event) follows one rule: the word that changes is the word that moves. And when you cut text to a voiceover, cut on the stressed syllable rather than the word boundary. The stress is where the ear expects the beat, and matching it is the difference between text that dances with the audio and text that merely keeps up."}]},{"t":"h3","id":"where-the-frame-is-actually-cut","runs":[{"text":"Where the frame is actually cut"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Whatever you design will be reframed. A 16:9 video becomes a 9:16 vertical clip. The platform lays its own interface over the bottom of the frame: captions, a username, a description, a row of buttons down the right edge. The lower third of a 16:9 frame is precisely where a caption bar lands."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Practical rules:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Keep essential text inside the middle 80 per cent horizontally."}],[{"text":"Keep it above the bottom 20 per cent, even though the name of the graphic tells you to do the opposite."}],[{"text":"If the piece will be cut vertical, check it in a 9:16 crop before you build the graphics, not after."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"For legibility, a drop shadow at default settings does very little. What works is a scrim: a soft dark gradient behind the text, tall and low in contrast, or a wide, very soft shadow at low opacity combined with a 1 to 2 pixel dark outline. Test it against the brightest frame the text will sit over, not an average one."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Fonts carry licences, and a licence for print does not always cover embedding in video. "},{"text":"Design foundations","href":"https://addaly.com/learn/design-foundations"},{"text":" covers choosing type; the licence question is worth a minute before you deliver a client’s video."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"tools-and-the-caption-style-everyone-uses","runs":[{"text":"Tools, and the caption style everyone uses"}]},{"t":"h3","id":"tools-including-the-free-ones","runs":[{"text":"Tools, including the free ones"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"DaVinci Resolve","b":true},{"text":" (free): the Text+ tool is powerful: real controls, and the Fusion page underneath it for anything custom. This is the best free option by some distance."}],[{"text":"Premiere Pro","b":true},{"text":": Essential Graphics, with saved templates. Paid, and what most job ads name."}],[{"text":"Kdenlive","b":true},{"text":" and "},{"text":"Shotcut","b":true},{"text":" (free): basic title animation. Fine for a fade and a slide."}],[{"text":"Canva","b":true},{"text":" (free tier): animated text presets. Limited easing, no custom curves, and completely adequate for a simple title card."}],[{"text":"CapCut","b":true},{"text":" on a phone: auto-captions and text presets, free, and the fastest path if you have no laptop."}],[{"text":"CSS","b":true},{"text":" for anything on the web, where a lower-third is just a positioned element with a transition."}]]},{"t":"h3","id":"the-caption-style-honestly-assessed","runs":[{"text":"The caption style, honestly assessed"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"One word at a time, large, centred, popping and colour-changing in time with the speech. It works: on a muted feed it holds attention, and the platforms’ own tools generate it in one tap."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"It is also hard work for anyone reading English as a second or third language, because it removes the ability to read ahead. Chunks of two to four words, held for a beat, keep most of the retention benefit and are considerably kinder. Pick deliberately rather than by default."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"And read your auto-captions. They get names, place names, technical terms and any non-English word wrong, reliably, every time."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"today","runs":[{"text":"Today"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Mute one of your videos and watch it. If you cannot tell who is talking, what the piece is about, or what you are meant to do at the end, the graphics are decorative rather than working."}]}],"check":{"question":[{"text":"A three-second lower-third has a 1.2-second animated entrance and a 0.8-second exit. In testing, viewers consistently say they missed the guest’s name. 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