Tip Your Cap

Project Overview

Tip Your Cap is a community-driven web application built for serious flat cap and scally cap collectors. The project focused on designing and developing a purpose-built collection tracking platform from scratch, one that captures the nuance of the hobby, drives daily engagement through gamification, and connects collectors through a shared social experience.

Key Features

• Collection Tracker & Catalog: Built a detailed cap logging system where collectors record season, material, price, purchase date, colors, and personal photos, creating a true digital catalog tailored to how enthusiasts actually think about their caps.
• The Wear-Off Competition: Developed a unique community bracket where caps compete and win based on actual wear data, not popularity polls, tying gamification directly to real usage behavior.
• Community Catalog & Social Layer: Enabled collectors to share caps publicly, copy others’ caps to their own collection, follow fellow enthusiasts, and engage in threaded comments on individual cap profiles.
• Points, Badges & Leaderboards: Designed a full gamification system rewarding every collector action; adding caps, sharing, commenting, logging wears, with milestone badges and ranked leaderboards to sustain long-term engagement.
• Public Collector Profiles: Created shareable public profile pages with bio, avatar, pinned cap, and milestone badges, turning each collector’s page into a personal brand within the community.

Technologies Used

• Tech: Custom Web App, Responsive HTML/CSS, JavaScript, Gamification Engine