Forging Her Own Path: Houmahani Kane’s Journey in Creative Development

I’m Houmahani Kane, a Creative Developer based in Paris. I build interactive web experiences for studios, agencies, and brands, helping them explore and communicate ideas, products, and experiences. Thanks to Codrops for the opportunity to share a bit of my journey with the community, along with a few key projects and how I approach my work. Selected Work During my years as a Creative Developer at a Paris-based agency, I had the chance to work on several WebGL projects for major clients. Exploring Company Structure in 3D One of my biggest challenges as a Creative Developer was a two-year collaboration with Renault Group. The goal was to build an internal platform helping employees navigate the group’s complex structure and find information in just a few interactions. The experience was built around a 3D planet, where each continent represented a brand of the group. It made the structure of the group immediately visible and gave users a spatial way to explore it. I worked on the front-end and 3D parts and helped define how users move through the experience. As the only WebGL developer at the agency, every technical problem was mine to solve, and some of them I’d never faced before. The project grew over time, and I stayed involved from start to finish. The client specifically asked for me to stay on the project, which showed the trust that came from working together over two years. Due to confidentiality, I can’t share visuals, but this outlines the core interaction system and challenges. Exploring Ideas Through Interactive Systems In parallel, at the same agency, I worked on an immersive AI-augmented moodboard designed for a French luxury house. The goal was to explore and structure visual ideas in a more interactive way. Instead of browsing static references, users move through a 3D space of images and keywords. Clicking on a keyword generates new related content, so users can move from one idea to another very quickly. I handled the front-end and 3D layer and led two other developers. The real challenge here was time. I had 20 days to deliver a working POC while still working on the Renault project. Interaction under Real-World Constraints I also worked on an interactive experience for a Paris Aéroport loyalty campaign. I handled the 3D and interaction layer from feasibility to production. The focus was on making the interaction responsive and consistent under real-world conditions with simplified assets and fallback behaviors when needed. A Reactive Brand System An internal POC where we explored a brand message through a reactive visual system. Users could directly influence shape and material in real time, turning an abstract idea into something tangible and dynamic. Fast, experimental, and a good creative exercise between projects. A 3D Product Showcase Over the past few months, I worked this time as a freelancer with the same agency on a project for a bank, building a 3D product showcase to support sales teams. The goal was to make physical devices accessible digitally, allowing them to be explored through simple interactions like zooming, rotating, and focusing on key elements. I hope I’ll be able to share this project publicly soon. Building My Path I’ve been drawn to the web since my teenage years, messing around with WordPress themes, bits of HTML and CSS, but I never saw it as a real career path. So I did what felt more “serious” and studied marketing. Didn’t enjoy it much. During my studies, a teacher showed us a Codrops demo: rain falling on a webpage. I remember thinking, “That’s insane.” From there, I fell down the rabbit hole and discovered studios like Immersive Garden and Merci Michel, and realized that what I’d been doing as a hobby was actually a craft. We also had an HTML/CSS module. I already knew it all. That’s when everything clicked. In 2017, I started teaching myself HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP, mostly through free online resources. Being comfortable in English was key. The best resources simply weren’t in French. I got rejected from a free coding program, found a way to finance a bootcamp—not obvious where I come from, but I made it work—and shortly after, I landed my first front-end role in a Paris agency where I was the only woman on the tech team. After four years, I needed more. Same projects, same patterns, no new challenges. So I left, went freelance for the first time, and spent that period doing what I’d been wanting to do: learning Three.js Journey by Bruno Simon and Blender through Roman Klčo’s Polygon Runway. Honestly, the most fun I’d had in years. I then joined a Paris-based creative agency as a Creative Developer, spending two years building WebGL experiences for major clients and working closely with design teams. The people I met there I still work with today. Some have become close friends, and that made a real difference when I moved into freelance. Not from a design school, not from an engineering school. I built my path through practice, real projects, and a lot of figuring things out alone. How I Work I often get involved early in a project, sometimes when there’s just an idea, sometimes with a full design. It can start from references, moodboards, or a Figma file. I try to understand what matters quickly, keep things focused, and figure out how to make it work without losing what makes it interesting. A lot of the work happens there, before I write any code. I don’t rely on a fixed stack. I mainly work with JavaScript, Three.js for real-time 3D, and either vanilla or React, depending on the context. I adapt to the project and the team. The priority is always clarity, performance, and keeping the system easy to work with. For me, the best part is when everything is still open. When the page is blank and we start building something from nothing. Personal Explorations Alongside client work, I explore personal projects, mostly around storytelling. I’ve always been fascinated by old photographs of Paris and collect books that show how places looked then and now. Two projects came out of that. One focuses on Rue de Chazelles, where the Statue of Liberty was constructed, recreating that historical moment so users can move through it as if stepping into a painting. The other is about my childhood neighborhood, currently going through major transformations. The goal is to recreate it across different decades and include residents’ memories. Both are still in progress. I also share smaller experiments as I go. Shaders, interactions, little POCs that don’t always have a final destination. Just building things to learn and see what happens. I also had the opportunity to share part of my work with the community through a Codrops demo, where I explored a scroll-reactive 3D gallery and how interaction can shape atmosphere and perception. Challenges of Going Freelance This isn’t my first time freelancing, so I knew what I was getting into. Independence is everything to me: financial independence, especially as a woman, and independence over my time. I’m not afraid of challenges, and I prepared: I built savings, maintained relationships with my previous agency, and kept putting work out there. That said, ten months in, every day still brings its share of doubt. Quotes that go nowhere, clients that ghost, projects that don’t convert. Making decisions alone feels uncertain, and I don’t always know if I’m making the right call. It can feel isolating, which pushed me to get out, attend events in Paris, and build connections. And then there’s AI. CEOs saying our jobs are disappearing. I’m using it daily and not seeing how it replaces what I do. It helps with complex math, it speeds things up, but the moment I let it drive, the result doesn’t look like anything I intended. I prefer to stay in control. That’s how it works for me. So the hardest part is ignoring the noise. Social media is its own challenge. I don’t use it personally, only for my work. The rules are dictated by the algorithm, not by people. I haven’t figured out the right answer yet, but sharing work publicly is what actually opens doors. The Codrops demo and this developer spotlight both came from just putting things out there. Most of my biggest projects are under NDA, which makes visibility harder, and building my portfolio has been its own challenge. The hard part is figuring out what I want it to say. I don’t want WebGL for the sake of WebGL: effects that look impressive but don’t serve anything. I crave authenticity and meaningful interactions, especially in an era where any effect can be replicated by AI in seconds. But that’s also what buzzes. So I’m still figuring it out. My strategy for now: build something strong and submit it to awards platforms. Get seen through the work itself. Final Thoughts I’m continuing to develop work that uses interaction to make ideas clear and meaningful in client projects and in my personal explorations. I’m grateful to the people who supported my path: the team I worked with at the agency, and Codrops for giving me this space. Early in my freelance journey, I had the chance to speak with a senior Creative Developer who gave me his time, advice, and connections freely. That kind of generosity is rare, and it meant a lot. To anyone starting out, start with the basics. Don’t let AI do it for you. Keep learning and master your craft. I can’t recommend Three.js Journey by Bruno Simon enough. Without it, I wouldn’t be doing what I love. He also built a community around it, which makes the journey feel less lonely. And to the girls, I wish there were more of us in tech. For me, this path came from nothing. It gave me independence I never thought I’d have. That means everything. Houmahani