About

Perfectly Looped GIFs are animated GIF in which the first and last frames of an image are seamlessly aligned to create the visual effect of an infinite playback loop.

Origin

On November 4th, 2011, Vimeo user MotionRevolver posted a tutotorial on creating seamlessly looping animations with After Effects editing software (shown below). On June 17th, 2012, Redditor djloreddit launched the /r/perfectloops^[1] subreddit for submissions of seamlessly looping animations.

Spread

On January 31st, 2013, Imgur^[5] user VodkaGummyBears created a gallery for perfectly looped GIFs. For the entire month of November, motion artist Fredric Furstenbach^[4] created one seamlessly looping animated GIF for each day (shown below).

On October 8th, CollegeHumor posted 23 perfectly looping GIF examples. On November 8th, Gizmodo^[6] published an article featuring various seamless GIF animations. On January 8th, 2014, Smosh highlighted 20 perfectly looping GIFs sourced from various sites, including Reddit, Gifbin and Imgur.
On January 22nd, BuzzFeed posted a compilation of notable perfectly looped GIFs.

Notable Examples

Cinemagraphs

Cinemagraphs are partially animated photographs in which a subtle movement action is seamlessly looped.

Droste Effect

Droste Effect refers to an artistic technique that creates a recursive picture in which a smaller version of the image is placed inside itself repeatedly. In still images, the recursion is limited by the fixed resolution of the picture but can repeat as an infinite loop in animations.

Wigglegrams

Wigglegrams (also known as stereographs) are animated images that simulate 3D effect by looping two or three frames of an object shot from the vantage points of the viewer’s right and left eyes.

Search Interest

External References