Writes PHP. Draws Faces. Somehow Still Sane.

Hey, I'm Zana Karzan

Frontend developer. Self-taught artist. Based in Konstanz, Germany. I write code, draw portraits, and occasionally question my life choices — in that order.

6+ Years Exp.
19+ Projects
35+ Artworks
Zana Karzan Hassan - Web Developer & Artist
Autodidact ★ Since 2017
★ Featured Work

Things I Actually Shipped.

MORE WORK Other stuff I built or contributed to.
01
fCMS CSS3 jQuery JavaScript

SÜDKURIER Online

Regional newspaper based in Konstanz with 100,000+ daily readers. Part of the team keeping the digital platform sharp — frontend work, CMS maintenance, and making sure the news actually reaches people the way it should.

SUEDKURIER.DE ↗
02
WordPress Beaver Builder MapTiler JavaScript

arriva gmbh Relaunch

Frontend work on the full relaunch of Baden-Württemberg's leading private postal service — 2.2 million shipments a month, 4,500+ business clients. Built interactive MapTiler maps for finding Briefkästen and Verkaufsstellen, flexible editor-friendly components, and a dynamic content structure. Less hassle for editors, smoother experience for users.

ARRIVA-SERVICE.DE ↗
03
WordPress Beaver Builder JavaScript

arriva-digital

The digital arm of arriva — an online portal that lets businesses send physical letters without touching a printer, envelope, or stamp. Upload a PDF, we handle the rest. Worked on the frontend of this DSGVO-compliant platform built for businesses running high-volume mail from their desk or home office.

ARRIVA-DIGITAL.DE ↗
04
fCMS HTML5 CSS3 JavaScript MapTiler

bodenseeferien.de Relaunch

Fresh frontend for the Lake Constance holiday platform. New templates and custom modules in fCMS — SEO-friendly, scalable, and built to handle a lot of content. Still running, still improving.

BODENSEEFERIEN.DE ↗
05
fCMS CSS3 jQuery

ka-news

Local news platform for Karlsruhe. Frontend and CMS work — keeping things fast, clean and readable for a city that moves quick.

KA-NEWS.DE ↗
06
WordPress SASS jQuery JavaScript

SK ONE

Full WordPress build for a Konstanz creative agency — custom theme, SASS, animations. Brand site done right.

SK-ONE.DE ↗
07
HTML5 CSS3 JavaScript

CodePen Experiments

The playground. CSS tricks, weird UI ideas, animations that probably took way too long — all the crazy stuff that never needed to ship anywhere to be worth building.

CODEPEN.IO/ZANAKARZAN ↗
Creative Works

Artworks

Portrait Illusion 3D

I picked up a pencil in 2017 expecting a hobby. Ended up with 35+ portraits, two exhibitions, and a stubborn obsession with getting eyes right. No arts degree. Just YouTube, stubbornness, and way too many graphite pencils.

Character: Joker - Portrait
Character: Joker Portrait
Under Construction - 3D
Under Construction 3D
Ragnar Lothbrok - Portrait
Ragnar Lothbrok Portrait
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio - Portrait
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio Portrait
Actor: Tom Hardy - Portrait
Actor: Tom Hardy Portrait
Actor: Tom Cruise - Portrait
Actor: Tom Cruise Portrait
Character: Jack Sparrow - Portrait
Character: Jack Sparrow Portrait
Character: Thomas Shelby - Portrait
Character: Thomas Shelby Portrait
Actor: Chris Hemsworth - Portrait
Actor: Chris Hemsworth Portrait
Author: Bakhtyar Ali - Portrait
Author: Bakhtyar Ali Portrait
Cover: The Godfather Series - Portrait
Cover: The Godfather Series Portrait
Singer: Adele - Portrait
Singer: Adele Portrait
Athlete: Cristiano Ronaldo - Portrait
Athlete: Cristiano Ronaldo Portrait
Athlete: Lionel Messi - Portrait
Athlete: Lionel Messi Portrait
Singer: Selena Gomez - Portrait
Singer: Selena Gomez Portrait
Actress: Emma Watson - Portrait
Actress: Emma Watson Portrait
Actress: Emilia Clarke - Portrait
Actress: Emilia Clarke Portrait
Actor: Keanu Reeves - Portrait
Actor: Keanu Reeves Portrait
Actress: Emma Stone - Portrait
Actress: Emma Stone Portrait
Actress: Monica Bellucci - Portrait
Actress: Monica Bellucci Portrait
Actor: Aamir Khan - Portrait
Actor: Aamir Khan Portrait
Actor: Shah Rukh Khan - Portrait
Actor: Shah Rukh Khan Portrait
Actor: Jackie Chan - Portrait
Actor: Jackie Chan Portrait
Actor: Jim Carrey - Portrait
Actor: Jim Carrey Portrait
Actor: Mr. Bean - Portrait
Actor: Mr. Bean Portrait
Actor: Robert Downey Jr. - Portrait
Actor: Robert Downey Jr. Portrait
Actor: Will Smith - Portrait
Actor: Will Smith Portrait
Actor: Benedict Cumberbatch - Portrait
Actor: Benedict Cumberbatch Portrait
Actor: Brad Pitt - Portrait
Actor: Brad Pitt Portrait
Singer: Shawn Mendes - Portrait
Singer: Shawn Mendes Portrait
Dont Breathe - Portrait
Dont Breathe Portrait
Optical Illusion - Illusion
Optical Illusion Illusion
MC Escher Inspired - 3D
MC Escher Inspired 3D
MC Escher Inspired - 3D
MC Escher Inspired 3D
Optical Illusion - Illusion
Optical Illusion Illusion
Optical Illusion - Illusion
Optical Illusion Illusion
Illusion - Illusion
Illusion Illusion
Monument Valley Inspired - Illusion
Monument Valley Inspired Illusion
Monument Valley Inspired - Illusion
Monument Valley Inspired Illusion

Showing 8 of 39 artworks

On The Walls

Exhibitions

4 exhibitions · 2019–2023

01

2019

Konstanz, Germany

Verwaltungsgebäude Laube

My first public exhibition — pencil portraits and spatial drawings shown in the foyer of Konstanz's city administration building. Featured in the official city gazette. Made possible with the support of the Integration Commissioner of the City of Konstanz and the Ministry of Social Affairs of Baden-Württemberg.

Verwaltungsgebäude Laube — 2019
02

Aug. 23–25, 2019

Refugee Music Art Konstanz

REMARK — Neuwerk Saal

Three evenings at Neuwerk Saal — painting, live sound installations, poetry and film all under one roof. My charcoal works were part of a group exhibition bringing together refugee artists from across Konstanz. One of the most memorable things I've been part of.

REMARK — Neuwerk Saal — Aug. 23–25, 2019
03

2022–2023

Konstanz

Wessenbergschule Konstanz

A couple of my drawings were displayed at the Wessenbergschule for close to a year. At the end of the run, the school acquired them permanently — funded by a donation from BB-Bank. Having my work become a lasting part of a school feels like the right kind of legacy.

Wessenbergschule Konstanz — 2022–2023
04

Sept. 27, 2023

Konstanz

AWO Treffpunkt Chérisy

Part of the intercultural event "Erzähl mir deine Geschichte!" — an evening where people shared their migration stories in interviews. My portrait works were exhibited alongside. Art and lived experience in the same room — exactly where I want my work to be.

AWO Treffpunkt Chérisy — Sept. 27, 2023
About Me

Dev. Artist. Somehow Both.

I've been at Media Favoriten GmbH since 2019 — started as an apprentice, stayed because the work never gets boring. These days I'm the developer the team reaches for when something needs to move fast and land clean. My boss and the PM team have a name for it: die geheime Waffe. I'll take it.

My role doesn't sit neatly in one lane. We have Laravel specialists, WordPress folks, fCMS maintainers — and when any of them are out or stretched thin, I step in. That's not a complaint. It's how I've ended up with hands-on experience across the entire stack without ever planning it that way. Curiosity did most of the work.

Lately I've been deep into AI agent work — writing, testing and fine-tuning guidance and skills for GitHub Copilot agents. Things like setting up WordPress from scratch, applying Figma designs via the WordPress customizer, generating Beaver Builder .dat files. There's nothing like it out there for Beaver Builder specifically, so we're building it ourselves. Still in progress — but it's the most interesting problem I've worked on in a while.

AI hasn't replaced how I think. It's sharpened it. Half the time I'm mid-conversation with a model and it throws something out that clicks something loose in my own head — and I end up solving it myself. That's the part I didn't expect.

The Joker

Whatever lane needs covering, I cover it. Laravel, WordPress, fCMS — I step in, get up to speed fast, and get it done.

Fast Adapter

Three days. ICML files nobody had heard of. Live election data. Delivered clean, plus extras. Ambiguity is where I do my best work.

AI-Augmented

I use AI as a thinking partner, not a crutch. It sparks the idea — I build the solution. Faster decisions, sharper output.

Tech Stack

What 6+ Years of Stubbornness Looks Like.

HTML5
CSS3
Laravel
MySQL
React.js
JavaScript
Sass
WordPress
PHP
jQuery
Figma
Bootstrap
Gulp.js
Git
WooCommerce
Vite
Tailwind CSS
Responsive Design
Career Path

Six Years. One Company. A Lot of Different Problems.

Full-Time Work
Sept. 2022 Present

Developer

Media Favoriten Interaktive Kommunikation GmbH - Konstanz, Germany

Started as an apprentice in 2019, stayed on full-time after qualifying. Now one of the go-to developers on the team — covering fCMS, WordPress, Laravel and whatever else needs covering. The role has grown a lot since day one.

  • Maintaining and developing large-scale CMS platforms — SÜDKURIER, ka-news, sweb.de
  • Lead developer on multi-site WordPress rebuilds for automotive and rental clients
  • Cross-stack cover — stepping in across Laravel, WordPress and fCMS when needed
  • Automation scripting — including ICML generation from CSV for live election data
  • AI agent development — writing and fine-tuning GitHub Copilot skills for internal tooling
  • Custom WordPress themes, plugins and Beaver Builder components from scratch
Internship
Sept. 2019 → Juli 2022

IT Specialist for Application Development

Zeppelin-Gewerbeschule - Konstanz, Germany

During my internship, I learned about business operations, IT systems, and market trends. I gained hands-on experience in developing and deploying application systems, as well as improving my business English skills. Specifically, I acquired skills in:

  • Understanding of networked IT systems and public networks and services
  • Familiarity with information sources and work methods
  • Development and deployment of application systems
  • Ability to manage IT systems
  • Knowledge of accounting and controlling
  • Improved business English communication skills
  • Insights into market trends and customer relationships
Let's Talk

Let's Work
Together

Whether it's a collab, a question, or just a random message — the inbox is open. Say hi.