So much is known about hermitian and non-hermitian idempotents in a $C^*$-algebra, that someone must have written down the following.
Theorem The universal $C^*$-algebra generated by one element $x$ subject to the relations $x^2=x$ and $ \| x \| \leq C$ is isomorphic to $$ \mathcal{I}_D= \left\{ f\in C\left([0,D],\mathbf{M}_{2}(\mathbb{C})\right) \left| f(0)\in\left[\begin{array}{cc} \mathbb{C} & 0\\ 0 & 0 \end{array}\right] \right. \right\} $$ where $D = \sqrt{C-1}$ and the isomorphism is specified by $$ x \mapsto \left[\begin{array}{cc} 1 & 0\\ t & 0 \end{array}\right], $$
This is not hard to prove, and makes it easy to see why an idempotent is homotopic to a projection.
Is there a reference for this result, that explicitly mentions a universal $C^*$-algebra or that spells out the universal property?