10 Best Video Templates 2021: Fast Typography, Lower Thirds & More

The old adage goes that “the pen is mightier than the sword”, but nowadays text-based content is struggling to compete with Netflix and YouTube when it comes to audience engagement metrics. Video is simply the most memorable, compelling, and shareable format – and continues to be a big marketing trend for 2021, whether it’s UGC, branded content or live video.

If, armed with these insights, you’ve pivoted to video, you’ll need video templates to create the type of high-quality, authentic and professional content that viewers have come to expect. Generic, uninspiring video content simply won’t cut the mustard for discerning audiences!

Video templates are a growing category of products that empower creators to make eye-popping graphics, that seamlessly blend with footage and audio. Not only do they look incredible right out of the box, they can also be 100% tailored to suit the needs of your brand’s tone and aesthetic. 

They consist of intros, outros, 3D effects, 4D effects, animations, text overlays, music, sound effects, video backgrounds, you name it. By providing a bedrock of high-quality customizable video elements and samples for use and reuse as you see fit, video templates provide a means to quickly and efficiently produce a cohesive brand aesthetic across all of your video content. 

While the need to produce engaging video content is more pressing than ever, getting started with video production remains a daunting prospect. After all, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Final Cut—some of the most widely used examples of video production software—are complex tools, and learning the ins and outs of any professional video production software is going to be a time-consuming, if rewarding, process.

How, then, can you produce sleek and professional video content without shelling out for VFX specialists or enrolling in a night school for video production?

We’re glad you asked! Enter video templates.

No matter what it is that you’re trying to do with your video content, rest assured that there’s a video template that’s been built to achieve that very purpose. Ready to get inspired? Here are just some of the creative ways video templates can be used to elevate your videos: 

Now that we’re up to speed on the incredible potential and versatility of video templates, it’s time to get stuck into the rundown of our absolute favorite video templates of 2021. From fast typography videos that can snatch people’s attention to slideshow templates that can bring still images to life in an emotional way, there’s something for everyone in this curated list.

This pitch-perfect film credits template is perfect for braindead summer blockbusters and gloomy, six-hour arthouse staples alike. Oscar-worthy.

A choppy, kinetic little opener that fizzes with energy, confidence, and youth. Sport and fashion brands, take note. 

An infinitely customizable little video template recreates the ebb and flow of a text conversation between close friends. Intimate and authentic. Don’t leave this one on read.

Move over, Europe, and take your hairspray with you. There’s a new countdown in town, and it’s a stunning video template. Perfect for product releases or current affairs broadcasting.  

Clean. Minimal. Hypnotic. There’s something almost sci-fi about the way the lines intersect and dissipate in this beautifully arranged, incredibly versatile logo reveal. Oh, and we love the included sound effects, too.

With 100 minimal, fresh, and modern animated titles, this video template has something for everyone. We guarantee it.

Remind your YouTube audience to like and subscribe with this collection of compelling little annotations. Best of all, there’s a step-by-step video tutorial included in the package. It doesn’t get any easier than this, so what are you waiting for?

This glitched-out title animation template makes a first impression like a jackhammer on a concrete patio. If you’re looking for something brash, bold, and perhaps a little dystopian, here’s a video template that’ll send pulses racing.

If our math is correct, fifty-five incredible Instagram Stories templates at fifteen seconds each adds up to…one of the sharpest video template packages we’ve ever seen. This collection is so diverse that it not only has something for everyone, it has everything for everyone. Hard recommend.

There’s a reason why this is one of the most popular packs of transition effects for videos in the world today. Every single transition is crammed with a totally unique, infectious, propulsive energy that you can’t find elsewhere on the market. Dope indeed.

Missed out on our top 10 last year? Here’s a replay of 2020’s best video templates…

This snappy opener will pair well with a “stomp” track, a genre of energetic, percussion-based tracks. It combines slideshow elements, showing still photography or video overlaid with a parallax effect, and bold typography into a fast moving, eye-catching template. With two versions to choose from, it’s perfect for showcasing both natural and urban environments. And coupled with the right photography or footage, it has the potential to a create a powerful sense of wonder in the viewer, and pack a punch.

Like the gritty opening of an indie film or HBO series, Macrovision by sonorafilms combines opening titles with a slideshow format it takes quite literally. Featuring placeholders for still images and video, formatted like an old school reel of photo slides, and overlaid with moody textures, it’s an opening that will instantly establish the mood of your video, without much needing to be said. It features a modular structure, dynamic animation, and full HD resolution.

Explainer Typography Kit by Aquavitae provides a beautiful explainer format focused on bringing your copy to life by adding unique behaviours to the typography. Bright, fun, yet still professional, the template makes it easy to create an explainer video that uses color and animation to draw the eye, and focus it on the words that best describe your product. It also features graphs and infographics to help bring your concepts to life for the viewer. It’s the perfect companion for a product launch, and would fit perfectly on a landing page or homepage. It includes 13 scenes with different text animation, easy customization, drag and drop functionality, full HD resolution, and a step by step video tutorial.

This one by marcobelli is pretty straightforward, and the item’s title kind of covers it all. Light Bulb Sign allows you to insert your own logo or text and put it in lights in the glitziest way possible. It fills the insides of your characters with animated light bulbs, then renders the logo in a 3D space, producing a panning effect that reveals your logo from the side, and lights it up as it comes into full view. It makes for a perfect logo sting for a YouTube video.

This bright and friendly template is a great option for promoting events, opening a video, or even using it as a storytelling device within a piece of content, combining images, video, and copy. The colors and animations bring to mind all things summer, and the animations help ease viewers from one bite of information to another. There’s a fantastic flow to this format, presenting the opportunity for you to make your business story, or whatever you’re explaining or advertising, digestible to your audience. It gives you a great format to begin with, but it’s also versatile.

A promo or opening titles template, this high-impact, unapologetically modern template is purpose-built for a sporting montage, or the opening of an action film, or TV show. Incredibly tidy and economical with its structure and visual layout, each segment of this slideshow-like design comes with a central placeholder for your video or photo, along with a text placeholder for names, and a strip to describe what they do – e.g. Executive Producer, or Cyclist. Featuring futuristic elements floating across the background, the design has a Bourne Identity feel to it that would pair perfectly with a crisp, driving electronic piece, similar to the one you hear in the demo.

Wanting to focus on emotions more than energy? Then this could be the template for you. If you’re more interested in presenting a sentimental journey through your video, Wonderful Memories Photo Slideshow by donvladone is a good way to go. The viewer follows a stack of photos being emptied on a table, and landing out in such an arrangement that you get glimpses of them all, with one being the central focus, overlaid with text. Each of the photos in these shots is customizable. It’s a beautiful way to showcase meaningful moments from a lifetime in a way that emotionally resonates with viewers.

Call Outs by therealist is a pack of sleek, useful, animated information boxes that you can use to call out certain people, or features of a product, and map them to follow those subjects as they move through the video. They’re really handy when labelling specifications of a product in a review, or promotion, or identifying people and their performance, or characteristics. They’re highly effective when wanting to communicate hyper-relevant bits of information in a direct way to an audience, and look streamlined and professional.

Fresh, eye-catching, and pleasing to the eye, Abstract 2 by sonorafilms is a great promotional or opener template option for a wide array of projects. Featuring easily customizable elements, this mostly simple design is extremely effective due to its clarity in displaying the content you include – which will be mostly text-based – its color scheme, and its animation, the movement of which draws the eye in all the right ways. It’s the perfect mix of quick, catchy animation with readable content that makes it one of the most used video templates of the past twelve months.

Finally, this video template is incredibly of the moment in its visual style, capturing an overall modernness and softness that our eyes are so used to now. Website Presentation Pack by MotionMediaGroup features a modern, friendly color palette made up of whites, light greys, and futuristic gradients, along with an environment made up of ellipses, rounded rectangles, and drop shadows. Combined with the bouncy animation, these achieve a softness that make watching this video inviting. The layout of the template is inspired, allowing you to show off different parts of your website or UI from certain angles that will engage the viewer’s eye, and providing appropriate text placeholders to include relevant information about each aspect of your product in a digestible, easy-to-read way. It’s cutting edge, versatile, and overall, stunning.

Whether it’s a gritty HBO style opener, a glitzy logo reveal, or a playful, cutting-edge product showcase, this list of 10 best video templates runs the gamut, and hopefully provides you with what you need for your next project. As video becomes more vital to marketing stacks, video templates will be more and more in demand. So keep an eye out on Envato Elements for all the latest styles available with your unlimited subscription.

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