Animating UILabel Font Size Change

You can change the size and font of your UILabel with animation like bellow .. here I just put the example of how to change the font of UILabel with transform Animation ..

    yourLabel.font = [UIFont boldSystemFontOfSize:35]; // set font size which you want instead of 35
    yourLabel.transform = CGAffineTransformScale(yourLabel.transform, 0.35, 0.35); 
    [UIView animateWithDuration:1.0 animations:^{
        yourLabel.transform = CGAffineTransformScale(yourLabel.transform, 5, 5);
    }];

For 2017 onwards....

Swift 3.0, 4.0

UIView.animate(withDuration: 0.5) {
     label.transform = CGAffineTransform(scaleX: 1.1, y: 1.1) //Scale label area
 }

Critical:

The critical point to avoid blurring is you must begin with the biggest size, and shrink it. Then expand to "1" when needed.

For quick "pops" (like a highlight animation) it's OK to expand beyond 1 but if you are transitioning between two sizes, make the larger size the "correct" normal one.

You could also use CATextLayer which has fontSize as an animatable property.

let startFontSize: CGFloat = 20
let endFontSize: CGFloat = 80

let textLayer = CATextLayer()
textLayer.string = "yourText"
textLayer.font = yourLabel.font.fontName as CFTypeRef?
textLayer.fontSize = startFontSize
textLayer.foregroundColor = UIColor.black.cgColor
textLayer.contentsScale = UIScreen.main.scale //for some reason CATextLayer by default only works for 1x screen resolution and needs this line to work properly on 2x, 3x, etc. ...
textLayer.frame = parentView.bounds
parentView.layer.addSublayer(textLayer)

//animation:
let duration: TimeInterval = 1
textLayer.fontSize = endFontSize //because upon completion of the animation CABasicAnimation resets the animated CALayer to its original state (as opposed to changing its properties to the end state of the animation), setting fontSize to endFontSize right BEFORE the animation starts ensures the fontSize doesn't jump back right after the animation.
let fontSizeAnimation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "fontSize")
fontSizeAnimation.fromValue = startFontSize
fontSizeAnimation.toValue = endFontSize
fontSizeAnimation.duration = duration
fontSizeAnimation.timingFunction = CAMediaTimingFunction(name: kCAMediaTimingFunctionEaseInEaseOut)
textLayer.add(fontSizeAnimation, forKey: nil)

I used it in my project: https://github.com/yinanq/AngelListJobs

This animation keeps the font top left aligned (unlike CGAffineTransformScale scaling the label from center), pro or con depending on your needs. A disadvantage of CATextLayer is that CALayers don't work with autolayout constraint animation (which I happened to need and solved it by making a UIView containing just the CATextLayer and animating its constraints).

I've created UILabel extension in Swift.

import UIKit

extension UILabel {
    func animate(font: UIFont, duration: TimeInterval) {
        // let oldFrame = frame
        let labelScale = self.font.pointSize / font.pointSize
        self.font = font
        let oldTransform = transform
        transform = transform.scaledBy(x: labelScale, y: labelScale)
        // let newOrigin = frame.origin
        // frame.origin = oldFrame.origin // only for left aligned text
        // frame.origin = CGPoint(x: oldFrame.origin.x + oldFrame.width - frame.width, y: oldFrame.origin.y) // only for right aligned text
        setNeedsUpdateConstraints()
        UIView.animate(withDuration: duration) {
            //L self.frame.origin = newOrigin
            self.transform = oldTransform
            self.layoutIfNeeded()
        }
    }
}

Uncomment lines if the label text is left or right aligned.