Algo’s Typeflow makes procedural type animation free and browser-based

After Effects has dominated motion design for decades. Cavalry, a procedural animation tool where graphic design, typography and creative coding collide within a no-code interface, has been quietly building momentum as an alternative. Now, data visualisation studio Algo has released Typeflow, a free web app that lets anyone type text, select a colour palette and generate typographic animations directly in the browser – no software installation required. The project marks the first public implementation of Cavalry’s Web Player, a beta feature that plays Cavalry files natively in webpages. Algo’s team has experimented with Cavalry on client projects for years. When Cavalry announced the Web Player’s upcoming release, they saw an opportunity to demonstrate what becomes possible when professional animation software meets browser-based delivery. Typeflow serves as proof of concept for the branded creative tools Algo builds for clients – motion systems and wrapped campaigns that generate unique videos for every user, powered by data. The technical challenge required months of research and development. Cavalry runs on Mac and Windows, but the best serverless cloud environments operate on Linux. Algo needed to find a way to execute Cavalry in that environment to achieve the scalability their infrastructure demands – rendering millions of videos across hundreds of parallel instances. The solution arrived through Wine, the compatibility layer that allows Windows applications to run on Unix-like operating systems. “Being in touch with the Cavalry team and being able to cooperate with them and also suggest what features to build next was fundamental to make this happen,” explains Luca Gonnelli, CEO & Creative Director at Algo.