The craft of on-screen text and captions
Launch library · evergreen read
On-screen text supports viewers watching without sound, but it also reinforces key points for everyone else, and used sparingly it can highlight the single most important phrase rather than repeating every spoken word, even if progress feels slow at first, a habit worth building sooner rather than later, a detail many creators only appreciate later.
Keep text on screen long enough to comfortably read, especially for viewers who are not native speakers, since text that flashes past too quickly defeats its own purpose and can frustrate rather than assist, which tends to matter more than it first seems, especially once the work starts to feel routine.
Keep font and placement consistent across your work, since consistent on-screen text quietly becomes part of a creator's recognisable style, much like a consistent colour palette or layout, even for creators who have been at this for years, a small shift that adds up over a long career, which becomes second nature after enough repetition.