A research portfolio app built to scale with content.
Kapil Sainju is a researcher documenting Newari culture and history with no existing platform to match the depth of the work. The project required a system where design guidelines applied consistently across an expanding body of research content.
Strict design guidelines had to hold across every future article.
Background
Research content grows continuously and unevenly. The brand and design system had to define rules strict enough that new articles, written by different contributors, would still render with the same visual discipline months later.
Consistency had to survive content the team had not written yet.
Research content with no structure, no system, no app.
A scalable platform where every page follows the brand.
Laravel with Inertia gave the team a shared structure.
Stack Decision
Laravel with Inertia.js and React let three engineers work against one component system without a separate API layer. GSAP handled scroll-triggered reveals for research content, Lenis smoothed scroll behaviour across long-form pages, and Barba.js carried brand transitions between articles.
Content Architecture
A reusable block system in Laravel let the team structure research articles from defined components instead of free-form pages. This kept every new article consistent with the brand without manual review of each one.
Motion System
GSAP managed entrance animations and scroll-triggered reveals tied to the brand's pacing rules. Lenis replaced native scroll with a smoothed alternative suited to long research articles with dense content.
Page Transitions
Barba.js handled transitions between research articles and core pages, keeping the reading experience continuous. This mattered most on a content-heavy site where visitors move between articles frequently.
Three engineers, one set of design guidelines to follow.
One component system every contributor builds against.
A scalable research platform delivered by a three-person team.
Team Delivery
Three engineers shipped the platform in three months, working from one shared component system that kept output consistent despite parallel development.
Live Product
kapilsainju.com.np is live and actively publishing research content. New articles follow the same brand and design rules without added oversight.
“I had years of research and no way to present it properly. The team built a system where every new article I publish looks like it belongs, without me having to think about design at all.”
Kapil Sainju
Researcher, Owner
Sainju & Co.
The hardest rule to keep was also the one that mattered most.
Project Team
Nben Malla, Full Stack Developer. Built with a team of three.
