Text Boxes

Usage: To provide further context to a story without adding VoiceOver or A-Roll narration. This tool is frequently used by major news sources as a way to simplify a video’s production pipeline, but it can also be used alongside on-location reporting to house less important details of a story. They should not be used as a stand-in for closed captioning. That is, the content of a Text Box should not be read aloud.

When using Text Boxes, it is important to avoid writing overly-dense prose within a single block. As a general rule, a single text box should house no more than 4 lines of text or 2 sentences. If the content cannot be truncated to fit, split it into a second text box that builds in immediately after the first one builds out.

Text: A core goal of Text Boxes is for them to fit in seamlessly alongside Location Tags and Name Cards. To that end, Text Boxes use Source Serif Pro Semibold, and should be sized the same as the upper lines of Name Cards and Location Tags.

Padding & Placement: Text Boxes require slightly different padding guidelines from their Name Card counterparts. Again assuming 1u is equal to the height of a single text line, padding for these elements should be a uniform 0.5u on all sides.

Because each line in a Text Box is presented as a part of a larger paragraph, each requires unique positioning within its background box. To achieve the 0.5u outer padding without distorting line height, the text in the first line is shifted down within its background box, and the text in the last line is shifted up.

Animation: