Animate your Logo with Remotion and Claude Code

2026-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

Note: This article assumes that you already have a Claude Code subscription. If you don’t, or if you’re not familiar with Claude Code yet, I recommend completing the first module of this free course before continuing.

I am a backend developer by trade. I know nothing about motion design. Yet it only took me a couple of hours to animate PixelWatcher’s logo:

Remotion

Remotion is a tool for creating videos with React. I don’t know the first thing about React, but that’s OK because Remotion recently released some agent skills, meaning we can now prompt Claude in natural language to create animations.

The other good news? Anything you create with Remotion is free for commercial use for individuals and companies of up to three people.

To get started with Remotion and Claude Code, follow these steps and come back here when Claude is running in your project’s folder.

Animate your logo

Now the fun part. Get a picture of your logo (preferably an SVG for scalable graphics, but other image formats work too). Place it in the public/ folder of your project so it is registered as an asset.

Now use the following prompt to create a composition from your logo:

This is a Remotion project, so use the Remotion best practices skill. Start a new composition from @public/logo.svg, using the same dimensions as the image

Claude will create the composition. Once it’s done, specify which parts of the image you’d like to animate.

This is the prompt I used for PixelWatcher’s logo:

Let's separate the various components of the animation. The isolated black square hanging from the bottom of the larger, rounded square is one. The rest of that rounded square and its contents are another. Then there's the "ixelWatcher" text, which is another component. And finally, the "Never miss a change." tagline is the last component

Claude will proceed to create separate components for each of those, naming them in the process. Feel free to change the names for something more descriptive – the trick is that you can now refer to each component by name to animate them separately.

Here are some example prompts I used:

The animation will start with MainLogo and HangingSquare zoomed in at the centre of the composition. The other components aren't displayed.

Let's animate the HangingSquare. It starts as if it were part of MainLogo's outer black outline, and eases down into it final position

You get the idea.

Once you’re happy with the animation, click the “Render” button to export it as a video.

Tips

Sometimes, the exported video doesn’t match the preview exactly. If that happens, explain the issue to Claude and re-render until you’re satisfied with the result.

Don’t hesitate to ask Claude to polish up the animation:

Can you now make the animation smoother

Or to clean up after itself:

Can you now simplify and optimise the code, making sure the animation stays the same

You can also ask Claude about the effects it’s been using, or spot them in the code directly: learning and remembering the names of those effects can make for better prompting in the future.

PixelWatcher is currently under development. If you’d like updates ahead of launch and get early access, subscribe to the newsletter at pixelwatcher.io.

Another Hat in the Ring

2026-01-13T00:00:00+00:00

I’m building my own SaaS.

I’m joining a growing cohort of AI-powered developers choosing to go it alone. Or at least try.

This isn’t coming out of nowhere. The contracting market has been rough for the past three years. My LinkedIn inbox is eerily silent, when recruiters used to cold-contact me 2–3 times a week. This isn’t a brag – I have just never seen the market in such a terrible state for such a long time in my 20-year career.

Maybe it’s the lingering effects of Brexit. Or the post-Covid hiring spree still correcting. Or the competition from cheaper labour overseas. Or the AI storm making companies question their headcount. Or maybe it’s the PHP language finally, actually losing steam. Whatever the reason, it’s time for a rethink.

And now feels like a good time to give entrepreneurship – or “solopreneurship” – a try. Everyone seems to agree that recent model upgrades (Opus 4.5, Gemini 3, ChatGPT 5.2…) represent a new milestone in capability, so much so that unsupervised agentic work is now a viable option. That changes the economics of building software as a small team... or a team of one.

Generative AI can make up for a lack of skills in many areas. A hardened backend developer like me should be able to conjure up half-decent frontend code without losing his mind. Heck, I even think I can come up with a respectable design, so long as the right skills are loaded.

It’s too early to be specific about the product I’m intending to build. What I can say though is that it’s hardly an original idea. There are plenty of competitors doing more or less the same thing already, but I think I can do it simpler and cheaper. Instead of being disrupted, I’d rather do a bit of the disrupting myself.

To be clear though, this is an experiment. How far can I go on my own? Design and frontend are one thing, but how about marketing? UX? Customer support? SEO? (If that’s even a thing in the age of LLMs.)

There’s a lot of hype out there, and while I’m confident some of it is justified, I also want to see for myself. But there’s one thing I’m absolutely certain of: software development has changed forever. And there is no way in hell I’ll be late to the party.

As others have pointed out, developers resisting AI today look a lot like assembly programmers resisting high-level languages in the 80s – too slow, not “crafty” enough. History didn’t side with them.

The problem is that no one will let you tear down and rebuild your workflow during office hours. Some companies might encourage a level of experimentation, but it will always be constrained by culture and deadlines. It’s no coincidence that the most interesting AI setups are coming from independent developers and founders.

So I’m using this project as a playground. I’ll test tools, workflows, and ideas, and build an AI-powered setup that reflects this new era of software development. If the SaaS takes off, great. If not, the learning alone is worth it.

And I’m planning to write about it, too. Good old written blog posts, right here. So make sure to subscribe to the newsletter below if that sounds good. No videos with silly faces. Promise.

Yellow Raincoat's Blog

Animate your Logo with Remotion and Claude Code

Remotion

Animate your logo

Tips

Another Hat in the Ring