Lawrie Cape

Hi! I'm Lawrie, a creative front-end and javascript developer.

Over the last 12 years, I have worked for a number of top UK digital agencies and technology companies. I am currently a Front End Engineer at M&G Prudential, where I work with a large, distributed team to build and maintain best-in-class digital products for the financial services industry.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to show a number of my client projects publicly. For my full portfolio site, please email me.

Below you will find a selection of my favourite personal projects.

Gigfi

Gigfi is a web app for creating and playing Spotify playlists, which are populated with songs by bands who will soon be playing in your city, no matter where in the world you are.

I planned the core concept, built the initial prototype and wrote the backend functionality, and collaborated with two colleagues on the design and front end build.

The site has garnered high praise, receiving 50,000 visits within 24 hours of launch. It reached the front page of Reddit and has been featured on Fast Company, BuzzFeed and BBC News.

“A simple, powerful mashup is the best thing to happen to music on the internet in a little while.”

Matt Buchanan - BuzzFeed
Watch the BBC Click segment here

Unfortunately, due to recent LastFM API changes, the site no longer functions.

Scales

Scales is a React based web app designed to help visualise and experiment with music scales across a variety of tunings and instruments.

Scales uses -

  • React
  • React Router
  • WebAudio
  • WebMidi input & output
  • Anime JS
  • LocalStorage API
  • Sass
  • Netlify continous deployments
View the project here

Note: This is a proof of concept and is pending a full UX and design overhaul upon partnership with a designer.

Rompola

Rompola is an informal 3d sketching environment running directly in the browser.

Built using webGL (through threeJS), TweenLite, PreloadJS and EaselJS, Rompola is a expressive and fun to use drawing app.

Draw with your left mouse button and rotate the stage with the right. You can zoom and pan using your mouse wheel, and there are numerous other options to play with, which allow you to create a wide variety of styles and effects. The project was featured on Google's Chrome Experiments site.

View the project here Watch a video demonstration

Tangent Spaces

After discovering the beautiful geometric designs created by graphic designer Tilman Zitzmann for his Geometry Daily project, I was inspired to see how I could recreate them, and bring them to life.

Tangent Spaces is an open source project which explores the designs using various interactive web technologies.

Tangent Spaces uses PixiJS's 2d rendering engine for super-fast webGL rendering, with a canvas fallback where necessary, and is featured on the official PixiJS showcase.

“This is so awesome, it’s ridiculous!!”

@Tilman - Geometry Daily designer
View the project here

Cellular AutoMidi & Flash Midi Server

To explore the intersection between generative systems and music, I developed Cellular AutoMidi, an audio application, which creates music based on a modified Cellular Automata algorithm.

Designed to be enigmatic but playful, Cellular AutoMidi was released as an open source project and was featured on the influential music production blog Create Digital Music

To extend the creative possibilities of the application, I developed Flash Midi Server, a Processing application and Flash library to allow AS3 applications to both send and receive midi signals.

This allows generative audio applications (such as Cellular AutoMidi) to play music using software or hardware audio equipment - vastly increasing the possible sounds. It also allows hardware midi controllers to be used as input devices for Flash applications.

Watch a video demonstration Watch a video of FMS powering a hardware synthesiser

Feedback Cam

Feedback Cam is a recent project, which uses cutting edge web technologies (webGL, webRTC streaming video and fragment shaders) to explore the beautiful and complex patterns that emerge from recursive video loops.

Watch a video demonstration of FeedbackCam

WebMidi Typography

WebMidi Typography is an project experimenting with web technologies and physical interfaces. An input device, originally designed for audio manipulation, is repurposed to interact with a web project using the WebMidi api. Typographic settings such as heading and body fonts, colours, sizes, line-spacing, leading and alignment are customized in real time. The tactile nature of the inputs the device offers and the instant feedback makes experimenting a rapid and enjoyable process.

Watch a video demonstration

Wiblr

Wiblr is an experiment that uses concentric circles, a simple physics system and webGL as a novel interface for photographic manipulation. It allows users to upload an image, or take on from their phone camera directly in the browser, then lets them warp and deform it in fun ways. The project was featured on Google's Chrome Experiments site. A simplified version of Wiblr was featured on the CodePen homepage.

Since launch, the project has been viewed over a million times, and has wasted at least 1.5 years of time. Wow!

View Wiblr here Watch a video demonstration

Contact

Do you have an amazing idea for a web app? A question about generative music systems? Or just looking for someone to hang out with at next mathrock gig?

Don't hesitate to get in touch; Drop me an email or a tweet.