Title Design: lower thirds and title reveals by broadcast rules — effect skill for headlines & callouts
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Lower thirds, speaker plates, show opens and glitch, CRT or chrome title reveals with hold times, safe areas and easing as presets.
- Type: Effect · Headlines & callouts
- Slug:
title-design - Status: live
- Publisher: varg (varg, verified)
- License: MIT
- Source: https://github.com/vargHQ/skills/tree/main/title-design
- Works in: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenClaw, varg Studio
- Requires: Node 22 + ffmpeg (HyperFrames) or a Remotion 4 project
- Cost: Free: renders locally with HyperFrames, Remotion or ffmpeg. Generated footage, voice or music is billed in varg credits with an estimate first.
- Runtime: Minutes per template, mostly render time
What it does
Nine title templates that follow broadcast practice: information holds long enough to be read twice, sits inside the safe area, and every effect (CRT, glitch, chrome) is a transition that resolves into clean, readable type.
9 templates, 33 presets. Every rule in the skill cites its source; every preset is exact values (durations, easing, sizes, colors, fonts) in a JSON file the agent loads.
| Template | Presets |
|---|---|
| Block glitch title: A title that snaps in through a heavy block glitch, crashes, and settles into clean type | On black, Transparent, Stepped |
| Chrome echo melt: A single chrome word that melts into stepped echoes, blurs into a grainy halo and dissolves | Ice, Chrome, Ember, Toxic |
| CRT scanline title: A name and role that crash onto a CRT, then clear to clean type on a transparent frame | Consumer TV, Arcade monitor, Terminal green |
| Headline write-on: A headline that writes on letter by letter, word by word or line by line, then holds | Display, Editorial, Chapter card, Kinetic |
| Name lower third: Identify a speaker (name + role or handle) on first appearance | Clean, Boxed, Editorial, Handle |
| Place and date lower third: State where and when a scene happens: place over coordinates, a date or a local time | Clean, Boxed, Editorial, Centered |
| Show open title: Opening title for a podcast or series: show name on the beat, guest plates typed on a panel, then away | Standard 10 s, Cold 5 s, Vertical |
| Speaker plates: A consistent plate system for talking-head videos: two-line plate, ticker, caption bar, title card, corner tag | Two-line plate, Ticker, Caption bar, Title card, Corner tag |
| Stepped channel bumper: A channel bumper animated on twos: streak panels, a name plate, a topic card with a ghosted wipe | Classic, Sting 3 s, On threes |
Rules every template follows
- Hold for two reads: hold = clamp(2 × max(words × 0.36, chars/20), 3, 7) s.
- Safe areas: 16:9 graphics-safe 5% per edge, action-safe 3.5%; 9:16 text between 14% top and 35% bottom, 6% sides, clear of the right rail.
- Enter emphasized-decelerate cubic-bezier(0.05,0.7,0.1,1); exit emphasized-accelerate cubic-bezier(0.3,0,0.8,0.15); exits ~35% shorter (0.45 s in / 0.28 s out).
- Type by frame height: display 9–14%, chapter 6–8%, lower-third name 4.5–5.5%, role 60–70% of name, nothing under 2%.
- Caps +0.05–0.12em tracking; display −0.01 to −0.02em; tabular figures for changing numbers.
- Dark plates ≥60% opacity (default 75–85%); light plates ≥85% with #111 text.
Built from: Netflix Timed Text + BBC; EBU R95; Spider-Verse animators Jeff Panko & Geeta Basantani; Timothy Lottes (crt-lottes); Michelle Dougherty / Imaginary Forces (Art of the Title); Jason Boone (Frame.io); Chris Salters, Joey Korenman, Nol Honig (School of Motion); Material 3; GSAP; X: @jakeinmotion, @tranmautritam, @TheMirzaBeig, @komm64.
Renders locally with HyperFrames or Remotion for 0 credits; generated footage, voice or music runs through varg with a cost estimate first.
Use when
- How to make a lower third for an interview video
- How long should a lower third stay on screen
- How to animate text on twos
- How to make a podcast intro title with guest names
- How to make a glitch text reveal
- How to make a CRT scanline text effect
Not for
- Burn word-by-word captions into my reel (use caption-styles)
- Animate our logo mark into a 3 s sting (use paper-shaders or a logo-animation skill)
- Generate a cinematic opening shot of a city at night (use varg-ai)
Install
- Claude Code:
claude plugin marketplace add vargHQ/skills && claude plugin install varg@varg - Codex:
npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill title-design -a codex -y - Cursor:
npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill title-design -a cursor -y - OpenClaw:
npx clawhub@latest install title-design - Gemini CLI:
npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill title-design -a gemini-cli -y - Any agent, with the vargai CLI:
vargai install title-design
Example output
https://s3.varg.ai/files/72c55813-c0fa-4cf2-9f64-ec4f7ed0e7ae/file_8052ab02c6d5.mp4 — example (credit: varg)
More headlines & callouts skills
- Kicker Over Rising Headline: A small mono kicker fades in, then the headline rises word by word from a soft blur.
- Rotating Benefit Word: A fixed phrase holds while one word in it cycles through benefits, uses or audiences.
- Masked Line Reveal: Each line slides up out of an invisible slot, so the type looks cut from the frame.
- Marker on the Key Phrase: A marker band draws behind the one phrase that matters while the rest of the line stays calm.
- Strike Old, Write New: A line strikes through the old way, then the new word takes its place.
- Clean Lower Third: Name and role slide in at the lower left on a quiet bar, hold 3–5 s, then wipe out.