Showreel app

Spool: a personal showreel editor

Try it out
  • Product design
  • Prototyping
  • Development
  • 2026
The Showreel app: a template list on the left, a stage in the centre playing the Helix loop with numbered demo cards spiralling in 3D, a timeline below, and the template’s controls on the right.

I built Spool to help Socialive’s marketing and sales teams create polished motion assets without relying on a designer. Drop in a folder of work, choose a template, and export a finished reel in minutes. Try it out

Team
Solo, built with Claude Code
Timeline
2026
Outcome
A self-serve motion tool designed to make polished creative accessible to non-designers.

Why it exists

Marketing and sales needed a steady supply of motion assets. Every request depended on a designer.

Spool turns repeatable creative work into a self-serve workflow, giving teams more independence without requiring motion design skills.

Designing the constraints

Spool includes templates for animated sequences and seamless 3D loops. Users can adjust timing, transitions, and motion, preview changes on a live stage, and export video, images, or an embeddable player.

The design challenge was deciding which controls to expose. Templates provide the craft. A few meaningful controls give users flexibility without overwhelming them.

Three panels from the Spool interface on black: the Loops template picker with Orbit cluster, Orbit sphere, Wheel, Wheel vertical and Helix thumbnails; the Filmstrip template’s controls, direction, card size, gap, 3D tilt and rotation; and the Canvas and Title card panels with background swatches, a reel typeface choice and a headline field.
The few controls that matter: a template picker, the template’s own handful of settings, and the canvas and title card.

Building the engine

I built Spool iteratively with Claude Code. A custom WebGL2 renderer powers the preview, timeline, and export using the same rendering logic, keeping them in sync.

Everything runs in the browser. No account or media upload required.

What I learned

The goal wasn’t to teach everyone motion design. It was to make good results easy to create.

AI accelerated development. Product judgment determined what to build, what to simplify, and which controls to leave out.

The best tools don’t just give people more options. They make the right options easier to use.