BERRAK NiL

developer / artist
Vector graphic version of a profile photo of Berrak Nil Boya

HI!

So good to see you here!

My name is Berrak (as you might have seen on the page above) and I am a Berlin based UI engineer, creative coder, web application developer and an audio generalist.

These days I spend most of my time working on making the web a better, more inclusive and a user-friendly place by collaborating with various teams and clients around the globe. On all other times I can be found drinking coffee, composing music, recording sounds, creating audio art pieces, making video tutorials, reading, and playing video games.

To see examples of my work, please keep scrolling.

BROWSER EXTENSIONS

FOR MULTIMEDIA

Browser EQ

Browser EQ is a parametric audio equalizer that allows users to control the frequency content of their in-browser audio. It currently has close to 600 users that use it everyday to enhance their multimedia browsing experience on the web.

Is the volume level of a video you are watching too low? Is the video game footage you are watching too bass heavy or has a high pitched hiss going on in the background?

Now you can use Browser EQ to filter, boost or cut the audio frequency content of anything you are watching in the browser, whenever you want.

FEATURE RICH

WEB APPLICATIONS

Soundminer Alloy application shown in various electronic devices like laptop and tablets

Soundminer Alloy

Alloy is a customizable and distributable web application that enables users to access and use their audio files and playlists on the cloud based Soundminer service, Soundchute. The project required a fast and easy to use UI combined with complete control of the backend API.

As the main frontend developer on Alloy, I designed and implemented the UI using React and Redux, was responsible for features such as text search, facet search/tag filtering, creation and manipulation of user playlists, with functionality like downloading, deleting from and adding tracks to the said playlists.

User Friendly

JAMstack Experiences

The Coffee Place website shown using responsive design in various electronic devices like laptop and tablets

Gatsby.js & Creative Works

In the last few months I had the chance to work at Gatsby.js's own website, and built their creator community pages, which are based on Gatsby.js itself which uses GraphQL among other modern web technologies like React and Redux.

I also created my Creative Works portfolio using Gatsby.js, it is based on parsing Markdown as source and updates with every new commit to the master branch of its Github repo. It's served from GitHub.

Custom Frontend

for Wordpress REST API

The Coffee Place website shown using responsive design in various electronic devices like laptop and tablets

The Coffee Place

A coffee shop website prototype, which uses a custom made React frontend that is fetching data from a Wordpress backend via the REST API for the Menu, About and Contact pages.

Used Axios for API calls, redux-promise as the Redux middleware to resolve promises and React-Router-Dom (new in React-Router v4) for routing. Deployed using Zeit's Now. Background video taken from coverr.co

Interactive Learning

with P5.js

An Interactive Resource on Timbre page one

An Interactive Resource on Timbre

Aiming to explain the concept of timbre in relation to musical instruments, this online interactive learning resource is created completely with P5.js.

In addition to using pre-recorded orchestra samples, realtime synthesized sound waves are used to demonstrate the concept in relation to digital waveforms.

Light, Fast

Responsive Websites

Perspectives website shown using responsive design in various electronic devices like laptop and tablets

Perspectives

An informative, multi-page project that is fast and responsive to be easily accessible in all platforms from mobile phones to 4K desktops.

Using React and React-Router v4. Deployed using Zeit's Now. All text and information is taken from Wikipeda and images are taken from Pixabay.

Audio Reactive

Visuals with WebGL

Different Trains

An audio reactive string quartet visualization, created using the Three.js library which is a very useful and convenient abstraction on top of the WebGL API.

Track is Steve Reich - Different Trains (3rd movement, "After the War"). Different frequency bands are used to move the different colored particle systems based on cube geometries. Both the current frequency and the amplitude are used for particle manipulation.

Integration with

REST and GraphQL APIs

Twitch clone web application shown using responsive design in various electronic devices like laptop and tablets

Twitch Client

A responsive frontend Twitch client that comes with a search feature. Connecting to Twitch's Kraken REST API to fetch information, this application is styled with React-Bootstrap.

Built with React, using React-Router for directory routing and Axios HTTP client is used for the AJAX calls.

Web Audio

Applications

Ableton Live Session View

Web audio version of Ableton Live's Session View, created as a demo application.

Tracks sync to each other after being triggered and pan, volume, mute and solo of each track can be controlled separately.

Built with React and Tone.js, audio stems used in clips are from Holl & Rush "Believe It ft. Mike James" Remix Contest

Skills

HTML5 / CSS3
  • Responsive Design and Development
  • Style Guide Driven Development
  • CSS Grid, Flexbox
  • CSS Modules
  • CSS-in-JS
  • Semantic Markup
  • Accessibility
  • BEM, SMACSS
  • Preprocessors: SASS, LESS
  • Frameworks: Bootstrap
JavaScript
  • React & Redux
  • Next.js
  • Vue.js
  • Gatsby.js
  • Hands-on experience using GraphQL and REST APIs
  • Libraries: Three.js, Tone.js, p5.js, D3.js
  • Functional and Object Oriented Programming Principles
  • Test Driven Development with Jest
  • Node.js
  • ES6/ES7+
Tooling / Workflow
  • Git
  • Webpack
  • npm/yarn as a task runner
  • Design and Prototyping with tools like Figma, Invision, UXPin
  • Debugging and profiling with Dev Tools

Relevant Work Experience

To Become Undone (August 2021 - ongoing)

Collaborating with sound artist Pedro Oliveira on a web based piece for ZKM Karlsruhe, responsible for web audio conceptualization and implementation.

Education Innovation Lab (July 2021 - October 2021)

Worked on the public workshop pages for the Digital Sparks app, using the latest React.js features and modern CSS techniques.

Draknek Org (January 2021 - March 2021)

Re-design and development of the Draknek Limited website.

Prater Digital (August 2020 - December 2020)

Worked as the creative & technical director for the cultural office of Berlin, and designed and developed a WebVR room using Mozilla Hubs.

Apple Inc. (February 2019 - March 2020)

Frontend engineer, responsible for rewriting several React.js components in Vue.js, in addition to working closely with the design and UX team on implementing new features for the SwiftUI Tutorials website.

Gatsby Inc. (July 2018 - September 2018)

Design and development of several new pages for the showcase section of the Gatsby v2 website.

Travis CI GmbH (December 2017 - April 2018)

Worked on the Travis web application as a frontend developer.

Soundminer Inc. (May 2017 - May 2018)

Created the web application version of their audio file management software using React/Redux.

Prefer Limited (April 2017)

React/Redux consultant for the new BringIt mobile app.

Trint (November 2016 - February 2017)

Worked as a React consultant, built components with React and Sass to be used in the new UI of the Trint web app.

GroupBy Inc (September 2016 - December 2016)

Worked as a Frontend developer/consultant to create and implement responsive page designs for mobile devices.

Freelance FrontEnd Web Developer (2014-...)

Creating websites for clients using the latest web technologies and best practices.

Webmaster | Ayvalik International Music Academy (2014-2015)

Managed all the maintenance and updates of this WordPress based website.

Other Work Experience

Composer and Sound Designer | WEE TAPS (2015-2016)

Created the sound design and music for the new Wee Taps game jingles.

Composer, Sound Designer, Implementer | Lava Fever (2014-2015)

Created and implemented all music and sound effects for the game. Used FMOD as the audio middleware and worked with Unity.

T.A. and Lecturer in Humanities Courses | Sabanci University (2011-2016)

Taught courses titled Major Works of Classical Music and Major Works of 20th Century Music.

Lecturer in Humanities Courses | Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (2011-2012)

Taught courses titled Opera History, Contemporary Music and Film Music.