BASE TITLES — Animated title templates for Premiere Pro (mogrt)

Today is a very special day — I am SO happy to finally be able to release my animated title templates for Premiere Pro. Introducing: BASE TITLES. I’ve been working on these for the last three years, but it’s really been in the last few months that I’ve significantly improved them with an expansive amount of features and details.

Of all the projects I’ve worked on, these titles by far, feel like the result of all my skills culminating together. From my career in graphic design focusing on typography, to my coding skills as a developer, through to my needs as a filmmaker. These titles really are a complete reflection of my creative work.

Featuring 40+ themes, an extensive library of custom icons and full customisation of colour and fonts; my animated title templates for Adobe Premiere Pro are a tastefully designed collection of motion graphics, built with usability and efficiency at their core.

This project wouldn’t have progressed as far as it has, if it wasn’t for your continued support and endless requests for where to get my titles, through comments on my YouTube channel and DMs to my Instagram. The demand for these titles has honestly been a huge driving force in the creation of them as a product.

Thinking of them from the perspective of other user’s requirements has also further enhanced the features and design of these. To the point that they have far surpassed what I ever imagined of them for my own needs.

I’ve been desperate to release these titles during most of the last 3 years, but there have always been a few “roadblocks” that got in the way of a truly seamless user experience. That is, until now.

In 2017, when I first started creating these templates after MOGRTs had been released, I was able to create a system that worked well for me. But it was unlikely to work well for others. One of the key issues was font support. Originally, using Typekit (included with your Adobe subscription), you could only sync 100 fonts to your system. The typeface I was using at the time, Museo Slab, contained 12 fonts which is obviously a significant chunk into that 100 font allowance. Granted, I didn’t need all fonts active for these titles, but it seemed a half-baked product if there were already restrictions to customisation.

As a designer, I was already at capacity for fonts synced. How could I expect anyone else not to be?

In 2018, Typekit was rebranded to Adobe Fonts and a whole host of improvements were made. Among them was removal of the 100 font limit and automatic syncing of fonts not currently installed! This was such a huge deal to me, as it meant these titles could be used by those without any font accounts setup, and those who’d already filled their 100 slots.

2018 was also the time I started experimenting with code directly into After Effects. I’ll admit, for a while I actually wasn’t 100% sure what language I was coding in. Most things just seemed to be working naturally with my existing knowledge from PHP, JavaScript and jQuery libraries. Occasionally, various JavaScript functions weren’t supported, which of course stumped me. Eventually, I came to learn what worked and what didn’t. The reality is, this isn’t a true coding environment, as we’re essentially using code to control a video timeline rather than a directory of files and assets. I can now confirm though, the language for After Effects expressions is definitely JavaScript based.

I had originally planned to finally release these titles in 2019. Unfortunately, other projects took priority and I didn’t get around to finalising these for public release until about October. However, they still didn’t feel as smooth an experience as they could be. In late November, Adobe updated After Effects, Premiere Pro and the MOGRT file format to support greater features and improvements. The most notable for me was the native support for drop-down menus in template designs. This feature alone cleaned up the interface dramatically and made way for an “unbreakable” system regarding icon selection.

Previously, I was using checkboxes for each of the icons. Essentially enabling and disabling icons required for each template. If you weren’t paying attention, you could easily have more than one icon selected and ruin your video export. It was a format I’d tolerated personally, but I could never justify it as a good experience for other users. Drop-down menus single handedly took me “over the finish line” for making these templates commercially viable.

A by-product of cleaning up the UX was allowing me to add so much more functionality without cluttering the interface. The extra years of tinkering with these titles enabled better efficiencies with the code I was using and perfection in the animation timing/feel. All in all, these titles have been a long time coming, but I am more than comfortable they’ve taken exactly as long as they’ve needed.

The levels of detail and amount of features “under-the-hood” to these titles are vast. With the highest attention paid to consistencies within the design, alignment and efficiency. Each title works seamlessly as a collection, or independently on their own.

As a graphic designer, I am a pedant for typographic styling, and I’m enthusiastically drawn towards design language systems. I’ve paid close attention to the visual rhythm with a rigid grid-system, and made sure of pixel-perfect implementation for the highest quality output.

It may sound superfluous to explain the passion I have for the details in my work. But all-too-often, I see inconsistent design and seemingly haphazard products available within the title templates marketplace. As a designer, I knew this was an area I was improve on.

Possibly my favourite feature of BASE TITLES is the custom theme system I’ve built. With 40+ different colour options to choose from, you have an incredibly easy opportunity to make these titles fit the vibe of any production.

I’m every bit as hyped about this from the way it’s been built, to the implementation and ease of use for the end-user. On the backend I’ve coded a simple, yet sophisticated, colour system that is easily scalable to as many themes as I could dream up.

Taking principles from CSS styling best practices, the simple method for allocating primary, secondary, accent and highlight colours throughout the design, has created a stable system that’s robust. The pièce de résistance however, is the functionality for colour clash-checking and fallback alternatives.

This is especially prominent when block colours are used as background slates. The code not only checks for similarities within a theme’s colour, but analyses its luminosity when cycling through for legibility.

This system paved way for extra features such as the Alternate colour setting. This is honestly such a killer feature in terms of ease of use. As video editors, we’re often faced with a variety of different shots to work with. Some light, some dark and some with chaotic backgrounds. The Alternate colour setting essentially allows you to instantly vary the colour-way of your chosen theme. With a single click you can easily swap your titles for different visuals, whilst retaining connection to the selected theme.

If you’d prefer to have complete custom control of the colours, you have full support for that. When using the Custom theme, you’re able to set the colours to your brand guidelines for every item and even change the fonts.

Many of the titles include icon support, of which I have included icons from major social networks, as well as many of my own custom designs. Along with the themes, I’m especially proud of the whole user experience which has been meticulously planned for the greatest convenience and ease of use.

Each icon-supported title offers variety in icon “base” styles: block, tab, and bounce. Each of these styles feature their own animated characteristics, with options for knockout or solid icon styles within the base.

Iconography has always been one of my favourite areas of design. With technicalities similar to fontography, I thoroughly enjoy the challenges of communicating a message in the simplest (and often smallest) form. The custom icons I’ve designed for launch, feature topics aimed primarily at video narratives, such as travel, weather, technology and food. I’m planning to design more icons in the near future and release them as free updates to purchasers of BASE TITLES.

If you have specific icon requests, please get in contact via Twitter!

Among many other features and details, I am incredibly confident these title templates will fit a multitude of use-cases!

These title templates feature the latest technologies and usability features found in the Motion Graphics Template standards (.mogrt) v1.6 and later. As a result, the titles are only compatible with Adobe Premiere Pro 14.x and later (released November 2019 as Premiere Pro 2020). Please note: these titles will not work with Premiere Rush, as they require the After Effects animation engine which is built into Premiere Pro only.

Make sure to update your Premiere Pro to the latest version via the Creative Cloud app. A full guide for installation and using these titles are included with every purchase. Learn more about MOGRTs in Premiere Pro.

There has been significant interest in these titles for Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve and other software. Unfortunately there is no template compatibility with either of these NLEs and no clear path for creating them… yet. I would absolutely love to be able to offer these titles for other editing software, but at present, the complexity and compatibility available between the Adobe applications is currently unmatched. I will continue to monitor the industry and hope to one day have these available for other platforms!

There are 18x core title templates (.mogrt format) in 4K UHD resolution, with a multitude of design options within each. Every title features a choice of 40+ themes, for easy and consistent visual adjustments throughout your whole production. Complete custom colour control is also available for every element, along with complete font customisation via Adobe Fonts (included with your Creative Cloud subscription).

The full package also includes a detailed manual for installation and use, as well as a visual guide for styling inspiration.

After installation, simply drag and drop the title templates from your Essential Graphics panel into your timeline. Populate the text fields with your required text and adjust the design parameters to your needs. Either browse for the templates individually, or install them in the designated system folder location for permanent access:

Mac — Macintosh HD/username/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Motion Graphics Templates/
PC — root://Users/username/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Common/Motion Graphics Templates/
Learn more about installing MOGRTs in Premiere Pro

To see a deeper dive into the thinking behind these motion graphics templates, check out the Adobe Live stream from early May. It’s a lengthy run through of one of the more simplistic titles, but should at least spark some inspiration if it’s something you’re also looking to explore.

As a bonus, I’ll be back with the Adobe team live on July 9th and 16th at midday (BST). Make sure to check it out on Behance, or follow me on Twitter for notifications.

As promised, here’s a short tutorial on how you can create your own Motion Graphics Templates (MOGRT) for Premiere Pro 2020 using After Effects. For this tutorial, I’ll assume you already have some understanding of how to animate in After Effects. As such, this is a tutorial primarily aimed at converting existing designs into template format for use in Premiere Pro.

If you’re following along and making your own titles, the code featured within the video can be copy and pasted from below:

base_style = thisComp.layer(‘Local Controls’).effect(‘Base Style’)(1).value;
// Value equates to index number in drop-down list
// Keep the drop-down list in the same order to work.
// Check if base style matches index (1 = On, anything else e.g. 2 = Off)
if ( base_style === 1 ) {100} else {0};

Whether you choose to buy my new set of titles or look to work on your own, I seriously encourage you to look towards them as a way to improve or benefit your videos.

It has been every bit enjoyable making these titles, as it is releasing them into the wild for you guys. I hope you’ve enjoyed the process I’ve shared across social media over the last few years. Follow me online to stay up to date with the next projects!

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