To make a hypnotic spiral loop from your own artwork, put the artwork on its own layer in Artfkt, apply a Hypnosis effect such as Spiral Fixation to that layer, and keep your title on a separate, untreated layer. Set the effect’s evolution to Loop, so its motion completes whole cycles within the timeline, then export an MP4 or GIF. Everything here works in Artfkt’s free browser demo, with no stock clip or video editor needed.

This walkthrough builds the SLOW BLOOM cover above from type alone, then measures what makes a spiral loop seamless rather than jumping at the repeat.

Why not use a stock spiral loop?

Stock spiral loops are quick, but they are someone else’s artwork. You can’t change the colors to match your cover, and the license may not cover a release or a client project. Turning your own cover, poster or photograph into the spiral keeps the visual identity yours. The loop also stays recognizable as the same release when it appears beside the still cover.

Build a source with plenty of detail

Spirals need detail to wind. A flat color or a single small shape gives the effect almost nothing to move. You can use any image with edges and contrast. This example makes a dense pattern from text.

  1. Open the Artfkt demo and remove the sample image and effect from the Layers panel.
  2. Select Document. Choose the Canvas preset Instagram Square — 1080 × 1080. Under Background, turn Transparent off and set Solid to #1B0F2E.
  3. Choose Add → Text and type SLOW BLOOM. Set Inter, Black · 900, 96 px, line height 1, letter spacing −2 px, color #FF8A5B and Box width 470 px.
  4. Under Transform → Repeat, turn on X and Y. The words tile across the whole canvas.

Apply Spiral Fixation to that layer only

With the pattern’s text layer selected, open FX, find Hypnosis and choose Spiral Fixation. The defaults already produce the cover: Pull 0.45, Arms 3, Winding 1.5 and Softness 0.12. Center sets the focal point of the spiral; raise Arms for more ribbons, and use negative Winding to reverse the direction.

Now add the title on top:

  • Add → Shape → Ellipse, 500 × 500 px, fill #FFE9C7, centered.
  • Add → Text with SLOW and BLOOM on two lines: Inter Black, 88 px, line height 0.9, letter spacing −3 px, centered, color #1B0F2E. Use Transform → Center on canvas.

Keep the layer order title, circle, pattern. The spiral belongs to the pattern layer, so the circle and title stay crisp. The center reads like a record label.

Left: the whole cover spiraled, with the cream circle warped and the SLOW BLOOM title twisted into unreadable curves. Right: only the coral pattern spirals while the circle and title stay sharp.

Same Spiral Fixation settings. Left: applied to the Document, so it twists the title too. Right: applied only to the pattern layer.

Applying the effect to the Document treats the finished poster, title included. Keep it on the artwork’s own layer whenever the words need to stay readable.

Make the loop seamless

Switch the bottom bar from Still to Animate, open Timeline settings and choose 5 seconds. Spiral Fixation has its own motion. Its Evolution setting decides whether the end of the timeline matches the start:

  • Loop fits a whole number of Cycles into the timeline. With Cycles 1, the spiral winds and unwinds once in five seconds and returns to where it began.
  • Free advances at a fixed Rate in cycles per second, regardless of the timeline. It closes only when Rate × duration is a whole number.

We exported three five-second MP4s at 60 fps. For each, we measured the seam, the change from the last frame back to the first, and a normal step between two neighboring frames mid-clip. A seamless loop’s seam is no larger than a normal step.

Setting Cycles Seam Normal step
Loop, Cycles 1 1 2.87 4.78
Free, Rate 0.4 2 4.24 6.85
Free, Rate 0.37 1.85 28.86 6.41

Values are the mean absolute difference in brightness, from 0 to 255, on full 1080 × 1080 frames. Both whole-cycle settings loop seamlessly. Rate 0.37 completes 1.85 cycles, so its seam is about 4.5 times a normal step: a visible snap every time the clip repeats.

Four frames of the spiral cover in a two-by-two grid. Top row: the Loop version's last and first frames look nearly identical. Bottom row: the Free 0.37 version's last and first frames differ in the positions of the coral ribbons.

Each row shows the last frame, then the first. Top: Loop, Cycles 1. Bottom: Free, Rate 0.37, where the ribbons on the right have moved between the two frames.

Keep the source still and the other settings fixed while you check a loop. Moving the source layer or animating another parameter adds motion that has its own timing.

Silent five-second Loop, Cycles 1. The coral ribbons wind tighter into a spiral and unwind again around the still cream label, then repeat without a jump.

Export the loop

Open Export and choose MP4, WebM or GIF. Animations use the full timeline. Demo exports include a small Artfkt watermark by default; turn it off for free in Settings → Export Settings → Include Artfkt watermark. Spiral detail is expensive to compress. Our 1080 × 1080, 60 fps MP4 was about 20 MB, so we re-encoded it at 720 × 720 for this page. Export sizes and codecs depend on your browser and device.

For a vertical version, choose the TikTok, Instagram Reels / Stories, YouTube Shorts, or Spotify Canvas canvas preset before exporting. The Spotify Canvas guide covers that platform’s requirements.

Other Hypnosis effects to try

The browser demo includes the whole Hypnosis collection. Each effect’s motion is built to loop when the source and settings stay fixed:

  • Endless Descent travels inward through repeating scales of the image.
  • Infinite Tunnel builds a lit tunnel and can carry your image on its walls.
  • Orbit Chamber wraps the image around tilted hoops.
  • Chromatic Trance moves color through tonal bands.
  • Breathing Field expands and relaxes regions in a slow rhythm.

See the Hypnosis collection for previews of all eight.

What the desktop app adds

The browser demo makes and exports this loop. Artfkt for Mac and Windows adds what you need to keep working on it:

  • Sync to a song. Import a soundtrack and map a spiral parameter to the music’s energy or hits, then export video with sound. The audio-reactive tutorial shows that workflow.
  • Saved projects to change the title, colors or spiral later without rebuilding it.
  • Full Export with previews, templates and custom time ranges, plus the full collection library.

The desktop app runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 13 or later and 64-bit Windows 10 (22H2) or Windows 11 PCs.

How these examples were made

Every image and the video were exported from the Artfkt browser demo in Chrome on a Mac on 4 November 2026. The source is original typography using Inter, bundled under the SIL Open Font License; no photograph or stock footage was used. Frame comparisons were measured with ffmpeg and Pillow on the unedited exports. The comparison images place unedited exports side by side at reduced size. These are starting values for this composition. Other artwork will spiral differently.