As a motion designer, I kept running into the same frustrating problem: every moodboard and reference tool only supported static images.
But motion design is motion—you can't reference timing, easing, or transitions from a JPEG. So I built Motion Canvas: an infinite canvas specifically for GIFs. Built with Svelte Flow for performance, it lets you search Giphy, upload your own files, arrange them spatially, and actually see movement while you work. Light mode, dark mode, infinite space.
That's it. No project management features. No collaboration tools. Just the one thing motion designers actually need: a fast, fluid way to collect and reference motion.
The hardest design challenge was saying no.
Every feature I considered—annotations, folders, sharing, comments—would have made it more complex and slower.
Instead, I obsessed over simplicity: how fast does a GIF load? How smooth is the pan and zoom? Does the interface disappear when you don't need it?
Svelte Flow gave me the performance foundation, but the real work was restraint—building a tool so focused it feels invisible.
Sometimes the best product isn't the one with the most features. It's the one that does exactly one thing better than anything else.
