Bonjour! 👋 My name is Corentin Bernadou, a French freelance developer obsessed with animations and motion. I work with studios, agencies, companies and individuals worldwide.
A huge thanks to Codrops for the opportunity to write about my story!
My Path into Creative Development
For as long as I can remember, I never really knew what I wanted to do for a living.
My studies reflect this: I started with a degree in philosophy, then moved on to art history. At some point, I started questioning what kind of career path I wanted to pursue, so I decided to keep exploring. By chance, I ended up studying communication where I first discovered web design. That sparked something, and I naturally continued into a full design degree. After graduating with a degree in Visual & User Experience Design, I found myself frustrated that I couldn’t go further: once the design is done, what comes next?
That question pushed me to take an interest in development. I didn’t just want to imagine experiences, I wanted to build them. At first, it seemed incredibly difficult, almost impossible. But I challenged myself to learn to code on my own, starting with the basics of HTML and CSS. Along the way, I discovered the world of creative development through Codrops, Awwwards, and FWA. And I remember thinking: that’s what I want to do.
A few months later, after working steadily toward small milestones, I began transitioning from designer to developer. I set myself a new goal: to land a job as a developer. So I poured all my energy into building my very first portfolio. To my surprise, it paid off. I managed to win a Site of the Day and Developer Award on Awwwards, and I’m pretty sure that recognition played a big part in landing my first job at an agency.
And here I am, six years later, taking on a new personal challenge: freelancing.
Learning & Experiments
To me, development (and creative work in general) is one of those fields with no ceiling. Early on in my career, I realized I’d never reach a point where I could say “I know enough now, I’m done!”. And honestly? That’s what motivates me every day, the excitement of asking myself: what am I going to learn today? Of course, being a developer can be challenging, and sometimes technical problems have kept me up at night (laughs).
At some point during my agency years, I felt like I had hit a plateau (and with it, lost some of the passion that had driven me). So I set myself a new challenge: learning how to create more complex animations, using WebGL. After getting to grips with the basics, I started building experiments and sharing them on social media, almost like a diary. My first posts reached an audience I never thought possible just by posting my explorations, especially on X (Twitter). Honestly, that’s what kept me going — and what pushed me to keep sharing.
Here are some of my first explorations:
Creating complex animations with some deformations was something I really wanted to master, so I spent a lot of time on it. That naturally led me to tackle what many consider the steepest part of the learning curve: shaders. Thankfully, there are some great resources out there to help wrap your head around the basics (thanks to Codrops & Three.js Journey by Bruno Simon).
Here’s what I came up with:
More recently, I’ve been focusing on math for morphing and motion animations:
Stack & Setup
As a freelancer, my stack tends to shift depending on what each project calls for. After years working with vanilla JavaScript and custom WordPress setups, I’ve been moving toward Nuxt.js paired with a headless CMS like Prismic or Sanity. For the animations, GSAP has always been my go-to, and on the WebGL side I recently made the switch from OGL to Three.js.
As for tools, I rely on Notion to manage tasks and planning, Cursor for writing code, and Warp as my terminal. But honestly, my two real non-negotiables are my notebook (where I sketch out animation ideas before touching a keyboard) and Spotify — I simply can’t work (and live) without music.
I’m always curious to see what designers and developers’ setups and workspaces look like. Here’s mine:
What’s next
Honestly? I’m not sure, and I love that.
A lot of my explorations start with a simple “what if I tried this today?” moment while browsing for inspiration. That spontaneity is something I want to keep.
What I do know is that I’m still at the beginning. There’s so much left to explore: more complex animations, new techniques, ideas I haven’t even discovered yet. Recently, I’ve also developed a growing interest in back-end development. It might seem like a different direction, but it’s just another layer to explore.
I hope freelancing gives me the space to keep learning, experimenting, and creating freely — and maybe, along the way, find the right people to work with. If I can make a living doing something that genuinely excites me every day, that feels like the kind of success I’m looking for.
Final Thoughts
If there’s one thing I’d pass on, it’s this: don’t wait until you feel ready to start learning something new. The resources are out there, more accessible than ever. If you ever feel stuck or uninspired in your work, that restlessness is probably a sign worth listening to.
That’s all, folks! Thanks again to Manoela and Codrops for letting me write about my journey here. If you ever want to work or collaborate with me, or just share what you’re working on — you can find me on X (Twitter), Instagram and LinkedIn.
