Author: Abdulazeez Adeshina

The border-image property is nothing new. Even deprecated Internet Explorer supports it, so you know we’re treading well-charted territory. At the same time, it’s not exactly one of those properties you likely keep close at hand, and its confusing concepts of “slicing” and “outsets” don’t make it the easiest property to use.

I’m here to tell you that border-image is not only capable of producing some incredibly eye-catching UI designs but is also able to accomplish some other common patterns we often turn to other properties and approaches for.

In this article, my plan is to dispel the confusing Aspects of border-image without getting into a bunch of theoretical explanations and technical jargon. Instead, we’re going to have fun with the property, using it to create shapes and put a different spin on things like range sliders, tooltips, and title decorations.

By the end of this, I hope that border-image becomes your new favorite property just as it has become mine!

There are a few specific Aspects of border-image that I think are crucial for understanding how it works.

The CSS Backgrounds and Border Module Level 3 specification says border-image should replace any regular border you define, but it’s not always the case. Try the code below, and all you will see is a red border.

/* All I see is a red border */
.element {
  border-image: linear-gradient(blue, red) 1;
  border: 5px solid red;
}

That’s because we’re technically declaring border after border-image. Order really does matter when working with border-image!

/* 👍 */
.element {
  border: 5px solid red;
  border-image: linear-gradient(blue, red) 1;
}

You can already see how this could be confusing for anyone jumping into border-image, especially for the first time. You will also notice that our gradient border has a thickness equal to 5px, which is the border-width we defined.

I make it a personal habit not to use border and border-image together because it helps me avoid overriding the border image I’m trying to create and be able to control the border decoration using only one property (even if both can be used together). So, if you get a strange result, don’t forget to check if you have a border declared somewhere.

The second tip I want to offer is that border-image is painted above the element’s background and box-shadow but below the element’s content. This detail is important for some of the tricks we will use in later examples. The following Pen demonstrates how a border image is applied in that order:

If we were to translate the figure above into code using the provided variables as values, it would look like this:

border-image:
  linear-gradient(...)
  s-top s-right s-bottom s-left / 
  w-top w-right w-bottom w-left /
  o-top o-right o-bottom o-left;

By default, border-image considers the boundaries of the element (illustrated with the blue dotted border in Figure 1) as its area to paint the gradient, but we can change this using the <outset> to increase that area and create an overflow. This is super useful to have “outside” decorations.

Then, the <width> is used to split the area into nine regions, and the <slice> is used to split the source (i.e., the gradient) into nine slices as well. From there, we assign each slice to its corresponding region. Each slice is stretched to fill its assigned region, and if they don’t share equal dimensions, the result is typically a distorted image slice. Later on, we will learn how to control that and prevent distortion.

The middle region is kept empty by default. That said, it is totally possible to use the fill keyword to do what it says and fill the middle region with slice nine (which is always the center slice).

border-image: linear-gradient(...) fill
  s-top s-right s-bottom s-left / 
  w-top w-right w-bottom w-left /
  o-top o-right o-bottom o-left;

I know this was a pretty fast primer on border-image, but I think it’s all we need to do some pretty awesome stuff. Let’s jump into the fun and start experimenting with effects.

Our first experiment is to add a gradient overlay above an existing background. This is a fairly common pattern to improve the legibility of text by increasing the contrast between the text color and the background color.

There are several well-known approaches to setting an overlay between text and content. Here’s one from Chris Coyier back in 2013. And that isn’t even the most widely-used approach, which is likely using pseudo-elements.

But border-image gives us a one-line way to pull it off:

.overlay {
  border-image: fill 0 linear-gradient(#0003,#000); 
}

That’s all! No extra element, no pseudo-element, and no need to modify the background property.

Well, guess what? The border-image property can pull it off with one line of code:

.full-background {
  border-image: conic-gradient(pink 0 0) fill 0//0 100vw;
}

If you compare what we just did with the gradient overlay example, the <outset> is the only difference between the implementations. Other than that, we have a single slice placed in the middle region that covers the entire area we extended to the edge of the screen.

We are not limited to a solid color, of course, since we are working with gradients.

Another thing we can use border-image for is decorating headings with fancy borders. Let’s start with the exact same implementation we used for the full-width backgrounds. Only this time, we’re replacing the conic-gradient() with a linear-gradient():

.full-background {
  border-image: linear-gradient(0deg, #1095c1 5px, lightblue 0) fill 0//0 100vw;
}

Now we apply this to an <h1> element:

So, that’s two different ways to get the same effect using the same border-image syntax. We can actually get this a third way as well:

.full-line {
  border-image: conic-gradient(#1095c1 0 0) 0 0 1 0/0 0 8px 0/0 100vw 0 0;
}

This time, I have defined a bottom slice equal to 1 (unitless values are computed as pixels), which produces two slices, the seventh (bottom center) and the ninth (center). From there, I have set the seventh region to a height of 8px. Note that I am not using the fill keyword this time, so the middle region is not filled like it was last time. Instead, we only fill the seventh region that takes up 100% of the boder-image’s area and 8px of its height.

You’re wondering why I am defining a slice equal to 1, right? The goal is to have only two slices: the seventh (bottom center) and the ninth (middle), and since we are applying a solid color, the size doesn't matter. That’s why I used 1; a small positive value. Any value will work (e.g., 0.5, 2, 100, 50%, 76%, and so on); it’s just that 1 is shorter to type. Remember that the slice will get stretched within its region, so 1px is enough to fill the whole region.

Here’s the deal: The slice value doesn’t really matter when working with a solid coloration. In most cases, the value winds up being 0 (empty) or 1 (filled). You can think of it as binary logic.

We could do this a fourth way!

.full-line {
  border-image: conic-gradient(#1095c1 0 0) 0 1 0 0/calc(100% - 8px) 100% 0 0/0 100vw 0 0;
}

I’ll let you do the work to figure out how the above CSS works. It’s a good opportunity to get a feel for slicing elements. Take a pen and paper and try to identify which slices we are using and which regions will be filled.

One thing that makes border-image a complex property is all the different ways to achieve the same result. You can wind up with a lot of different combinations, and when all of them produce the same result, it’s tough to form a mental model for understanding how all of the values work together.

Even though there is no single “right” way to do these heading borders, I prefer the second syntax because it allows me to simply change one color value to establish a “real” gradient instead of a solid color.

.full-line {
  border-image: repeating-linear-gradient(...) fill 0 /
    calc(100% - var(--b)) 0 0/0 100vw 0 0 repeat;
}

Let’s try another syntax for the same effect:

h2 {
  --s: 3px;   /* the thickness */
  --w: 100px; /* the width */
  --g: 10px;  /* the gap */
  border-image: 
     conic-gradient(red 0 0) 
     0 50%/calc(50% - var(--s)/2) var(--w)/0 calc(var(--w) + var(--g));
}

The top and bottom values of the <slice> are equal to 0, and the left and right ones are equal to 50%. This means that slices six and eight share the gradient. All the other slices — including the center — are empty.

As far as the regions go, the top and bottom regions (consisting of regions 1, 5, and 2 at the top and regions 4, 7, and 3 at the bottom) have a height equal to 50% - var(--s)/2 leaving the --s variable as a height for the remaining regions (6, 8, and 9). The right and the left regions have a width equal to the --w variable. Since slices 6 and 8 are the only ones that are filled, the only regions we need to care about are 6 and 8. Both have a height equal to the border’s thickness, --s, and a width equal to --w.

I think you know how the rest of the story goes.

Notice I am using 50% as a slice. It demonstrated how any value does the job, as we discussed in the last section when I explained why I chose to use a value of 1 but also to prepare for the next effect where I will be using a real gradient:

See the Pen Horizontal lines around your title with gradient coloration by Temani Afif.

When it comes to real gradients, the value of the slice is important, and sometimes you need very precise values. To be honest, this can be very tricky, and I even get lost trying to figure out the right value.

Let’s end this section with more examples of title decorations. When combined with other properties, border-image can make really nice effects.

See the Pen Fancy title divider with one element by Temani Afif.

See the Pen Fancy title divider with one element by Temani Afif.

Now that we’ve seen several detailed examples of how border-image, I’m going to drop in several other examples. Rather than explaining them in great detail, try to explain them in your own words by inspecting the CSS, and use these as inspiration for your own work.

Infinite Image Decorations

When it comes to images, border-image can be a lifesaver since we don’t have access to pseudo-elements. Here are some cool infinite decorations where we can have a touch of 3D effect.

See the Pen Infinite image shadow by Temani Afif.

See the Pen Infinite image shadow II by Temani Afif.

See the Pen Infinite image stripes shadow by Temani Afif.

See the Pen 3D trailing shadow for images by Temani Afif.

If you check the code in these examples, you will find they share nearly the same structure. If you have trouble recognizing the pattern, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment at the end of this article, and I would be happy to point it out.

Custom Range Slider

I wrote a detailed article on how to create the following example, and you can refer to it for range slider variations using the same technique.

See the Pen CSS only custom range sliders by Temani Afif.

I used border-image and styled only the “thumb” element. Range inputs are known to have different implementation cross-browser, but the “thumb” is common between all of them.

Ribbon Shapes

In case you missed it, I have created a collection of more than 100 single-element ribbon shapes, and some of them rely on border-image. I call them the “infinite ribbons.”

See the Pen Full screen Ribbon title by Temani Afif.

See the Pen Infinite Ribbon Shapes by Temani Afif.

I have written about CSS heart shapes using different approaches, and one of them uses a border-image technique.

.heart {
  width: 200px;
  aspect-ratio: 1;
  border-image: radial-gradient(red 69%,#0000 70%) 84.5%/50%;
  clip-path: polygon(-42% 0,50% 91%, 142% 0);
}

See the Pen Heart shape using border-image by Temani Afif.

The interesting part here is the slice that is equal to 84.5%. That is a bigger value than 50%, so it may seem incorrect since the total exceeds 100%. But it’s perfectly fine because slices are able to overlap one another!

When using values bigger than 50%, the corner slices (1, 2, 3, and 4) will share common parts, but the other slices are considered empty. Logically, when using a slice equal to 100%, we will end with four slices containing the full source.

Here is an example to illustrate the trick:

See the Pen Overview of the slice effect by Temani Afif.

The slider will update the slice from 0% to 100%. On the left, you can see how the corner slices (1-4) grow. Between 0% and 50%, the result is logical and intuitive. Bigger than 50%, you start having the overlap. When reaching 100%, you can see the full circle repeated four times because each slice contains the full gradient, thanks to the overlap.

It can be confusing and not easy to visualize, but overlaps can be really useful to create custom shapes and fancy decorations.

What about a simple tooltip shape with only two properties? Yes, it’s possible!

See the Pen A simple Tooltip using 2 CSS properties by Temani Afif.

.tooltip {
  /* triangle dimension */
  --b: 2em; /* base */
  --h: 1em; /* height*/

  border-image: conic-gradient(#CC333F 0 0) fill 0//var(--h);
  clip-path: 
    polygon(0 100%,0 0,100% 0,100% 100%,
      calc(50% + var(--b)/2) 100%,
      50% calc(100% + var(--h)),
      calc(50% - var(--b)/2) 100%);
}

Unlike most decorative border properties (e.g., box-shadow, outline, border, and so on), border-image doesn’t respect border-radius. The element is still a box, even if we’ve rounded off the corners. Other properties will recognize the visual boundary established by border-radius, but border-image bleeds right through it.

That could be a drawback in some instances, I suppose, but it’s also one of the quirky things about CSS that can be leveraged for other uses like creating images with inner radius:

See the Pen Inner radius to image element by Temani Afif.

Cool, right? Only one line of code makes it happen:

img {
  --c: #A7DBD8;
  --s: 10px; /* the border thickness*/

  border-image: conic-gradient(var(--c) 0 0) fill 0 // var(--s);
}

We can even leave the center empty to get a variation that simply borders the entire element:

See the Pen Rounded images inside squares by Temani Afif.

Did you know border-image property was such a powerful — and flexible — CSS property? Despite the challenge it takes to understand the syntax, there are ways to keep the code clean and simple. Plus, there is often more than one “right” way to get the same result. It’s a complicated and robust CSS feature.

If the concepts of slicing and defining regions with border-image are still giving you problems, don’t worry. That’s super common. It took me a lot of time to fully understand how border-image works and how to use it with different approaches to the syntax. Give yourself plenty of time, too. It helps to re-read things like this article more than once to let the concepts sink in.

Complexities aside, I hope that you will add border-image to your toolbox and create a lot of magic with it. We can do even more with border-image than what was demonstrated here. I actually experiment with this sort of stuff frequently and share my work over at my CSS Tip website. Consider subscribing (RSS) to keep up with the fun and weird things I try.

Special thanks to @SelenIT2, who pushed me to explore this property and wrote an excellent article on it.

The world of post-modern web design is one where the light doesn’t cast many shadows. That doesn’t mean CSS shadows are going away. On the contrary, they’ve become more adaptive. Shadows are an incredibly useful design element. We know they add depth to an otherwise two-dimensional web design, but did you know we can stack, animate, and manipulate them in ways that go beyond that?

I’ve been experimenting with shadows. In this article, I’m going to share several “tricks” I’ve discovered along the way and how they can be used to create interesting effects that have little to do with their primary role of adding depth. We’ll look at an effect that works by stacking layers of shadows that transition on hover. After that, I will show you how to make a shadow of a shadow. Lastly, we’ll play with shadows on text as an alternative to color.

Ready for some fun? Let’s start with an interesting hover effect.

Most of us are familiar with the inset keyword. It’s an optional value of the CSS box-shadow property.

When inset is specified, the shadow is cast inside the element, directed inward. It’s commonly used to make it look as if an element has been stamped into the surface of the web page. We are going to push that shadow further, both metaphorically and literally, to create an overlay hover effect for image transitions.

Just as we can control the shadow’s blur radius — how far the shadow spreads outward — we can choose to apply no blur at all to the shadow. We can combine that with the fact that inset shadows are painted over an element’s background (unlike default shadows that are cast beneath the element) to create what I call a “veil” that sits on top of an element.

Let’s start with a single div in the HTML:

<div class="item"></div>

There’s nothing to see yet. So, let’s add some dimensions, a background color, and a border radius to make a green circle.

.item {
  width: 250px;
  height: 250px;
  background: green;
  border-radius: 50%;
}

This is nothing fancy so far. I merely want to demonstrate that we can essentially cover the green background with a red inset box-shadow:

.item {
  width: 250px;
  height: 250px;
  background: green;
  border-radius: 50%;
  box-shadow: inset 250px 250px 0 red;
}

Now we have a red circle with a green background beneath it. We can remove the red inset shadow on hover to reveal the green background:

.item:hover {
  box-shadow: none;
}

See the Pen Inward Shadow Pt. 1 [forked] by Preethi Sam.

Since shadows can be layered and are supported by CSS transitions, let’s incorporate that for a more fluid design. First, I’m going to update the HTML a bit by adding a span inside the .item:

    <div class="item">
      <span>The New York Times</span>
    </div>
    <!-- more items -->

For the CSS, it’s the same idea as before. We want a circle with an inset shadow and a background:

.item {
  width: 300px;
  height: 300px;
  background-image: url('nytimes.svg');
  border-radius: 50%;
  box-shadow: inset -300px -300px 0 black,
}

The difference so far is that I am using a background-image instead of a background-color. They are absolutely interchangeable for the hover effect we’re working on.

Next, I’m going to do two things. First, I’m going to stack more inset shadows inside the .item. Then I’m changing the text color to white, but only for a moment so the background image shows all the way through.

.item {
  width: 300px;
  height: 300px;
  background-image: url('nytimes.svg');
  border-radius: 50%;
  box-shadow:
    inset -300px -300px 0 black,
    inset 300px -300px 0 green,
    inset -300px 300px 0 blue,
    inset 300px 300px 0 yellow,
    0 0 20px silver; /* standard outset shadow */
  color: white;
  }

Even after we add those four extra shadows, we still are left with only a black circle that says “The New York Times” on it in white. The trick is to remove those shadows on hover, change the color of the text to transparent, and reveal the logo beneath our stack of inset shadows.

.item:hover {
  box-shadow:
    inset 0 0 0 transparent,
    inset 0 0 0 transparent,
    inset 0 0 0 transparent,
    inset 0 0 0 transparent,
    0 0 20px silver; /* retain the outset shadow */
  color: transparent;
}

That works! But perhaps we should add a little transition in there to smooth it out:

.item {
  width: 300px;
  height: 300px;
  background-image: url('nytimes.svg');
  border-radius: 50%;
  box-shadow:
    inset -300px -300px 0 black,
    inset 300px -300px 0 green,
    inset -300px 300px 0 blue,
    inset 300px 300px 0 yellow,
    0 0 20px silver; /* standard outset shadow */
  color: white;
  transition:
    box-shadow ease-in-out .6s,
    color ease-in-out .5s;
  }

.item:hover {
  box-shadow:
    inset 0 0 0 transparent,
    inset 0 0 0 transparent,
    inset 0 0 0 transparent,
    inset 0 0 0 transparent,
    0 0 20px silver; /* keeping the outset shadow */
  color: transparent;
}

The only other thing I think that’s worth calling out is that the outward shadow in the stack is not removed when the .item is hovered. I only want to remove the inset shadows.

Here’s the final result:

See the Pen Inward Shadow Pt. 2 [forked] by Preethi Sam.

I used CSS variables throughout so you can change the colors of the shadows and the size of the element.

If we learned anything from that last example, it’s that shadows are visually interesting: they can bend, fade, intersect, and transition. But what about a shadow casting another shadow? Can we create a shadow of an element’s shadow?

This is not the same as stacking layers of shadows as we did earlier. Rather, we will be making a silhouette of a shadow. And because we have a second way to add shadows to elements with the CSS drop-shadow() filter, we can do exactly that.

A drop-shadow() is a little different than a box-shadow. Where a box-shadow casts a shadow along the physical edges of the element’s bounding box, a drop-shadow() ignores the box and casts a shadow along the element’s shape.

When drop-shadow() is given to an element with a box-shadow, the shadow from the box-shadow will cast a shadow of its own. We can combine these to make interesting effects, like a Venn diagram shape.

.item {
  box-shadow: 0 0 20px black ;
  filter: drop-shadow(-30px 0 0 blue);
}

See the Pen Shadow of a Shadow Pt. 1 [forked] by Preethi Sam.

This simple combination of box and drop shadows can lead to interesting designs, like shadows that cast shadows. Let’s start with some HTML that includes the same .item element we used in the last section. This time, we’ll place two child elements inside it, another div and an img:

<div class="item">
  <div class="background"></div>
  <img src="image.jpeg" />
</div>

<!-- more items -->

The .item is merely serving as a container this time. The real work happens on the .background child element. The image is purely there for decoration. We’re going to set a box-shadow on the .background element, then add a stack of three drop-shadow() layers to it:

/* third circle in the following demo */
.item > .background {
    box-shadow: 0 0 40px rgb(255 0 0 / .5);
    filter:
      drop-shadow(-20px 0 0 rgb(255 0 0 / .5))
      drop-shadow(20px 0 0 rgb(255 0 0 / .5))
      drop-shadow(20px 0 0 rgb(255 0 0 / .5));
}

We can also use transitions with these effects (as in the middle circle below).

See the Pen Shadow of a Shadow Pt. 2 [forked] by Preethi Sam.

The last effect we’re going to look at involves the CSS text-shadow property. It’s actually less of a complicated “trick” than it is a demonstration of using and showing just the shadow of a text element for color purposes.

Specifically, I’m talking about transparent text with a shadow on it:

/* second column in the below demo */
p {
  color: transparent;
  text-shadow: 1px 1px 0 black;
}

See the Pen Textual Shadow Pt. 2 [forked] by Preethi Sam.

Notice the emoji? Instead of the full-color deal, we normally get, this emoji is more like an icon filled with a solid color. This is one way to make a quick and dirty icon system without drawing them or working with files.

We could have also pulled this off with background-clip: text to clip around the shape of the emoji or apply a drop-shadow(). However, that affects the background, limiting where it can be used. Plus, I like the idea of using text-shadow with text elements since that’s what it’s used for, and emoji are part of the text.

You might think there’s a “gotcha” with underlines. For example, text-shadow ignores the text decoration of links.

See the Pen Text Shadow No Likey Link Underlines [forked] by Geoff Graham.

No big deal. If you need to support underlines, we can reach for the CSS text-decoration and text-underline-offset properties:

p {
  color: transparent;
  text-shadow: 1px 1px 0 black;
  text-decoration-line: underline;
  text-decoration color: black;
  text-underline-offset: 3px;
}

See the Pen Shadow-Only Link With Underline [forked] by Geoff Graham.

That’s a look at three interesting ways to use CSS shadows as more than that thing you use to add depth. We looked at one way that uses inset shadows to hide the contents of an element’s background for a neat hover effect. Then there was the idea of combining box-shadow and drop-shadow() to cast a shadow of another shadow. We capped things off with a quick way to manipulate text and emoji with text-shadow.

I hope these experiments give you the inspiration to do some CSS shadow experiments of your own. Shadows and gradients are perhaps the two most important CSS features for “drawing” with CSS, like many of the examples you’ll see on Lynn Fisher’s A Single Div project. Shadows have incredible browser support, so the options are plentiful as far as what we can do with them.

Further Reading On SmashingMag

• “Lesser-Known And Underused CSS Features In 2022,” Adrian Bece
• “Fluid Sizing Instead Of Multiple Media Queries?,” Ruslan Yevych
• “CSS Generators,” Iris Lješnjanin
• “Creating A High-Contrast Design System With CSS Custom Properties,” Brecht De Ruyte

In this article, I want to talk about the amazing possibilities of a CSS grid and how it allows for complex layouts that are closer to a print design. The design we’ll discuss is actually one I got to work on for a client (modified slightly to a demo case). It will cover two big use cases of a CSS grid:

1. Having a static grid where we define the specified start and end points for each element;
2. Using CSS grid template areas to reorder a simple HTML layout easily without updating the HTML.

As a bonus, we will also touch on object-fit and aspect-ratio, which come in handy as well.

Here you can see the design we will be implementing: desktop on the left and a cropped version for mobile on the right (imagine the mobile view to continue with sections 3 and 4). There is quite a lot going on here, and nothing really fits into neat rows and columns. The images are laid out on an uneven grid, sometimes even overlapping, and we have some narrow text and a numbering element that double as a design element.

Let us first look at the image grid elements inside each colored component. While we have four colored components, there are only two variants that get repeated. For easier comparison, I have cut the desktop version in half and put the two halves next to one another — this makes it easier to compare. As you can see, the first and third are the same, as are the second and fourth. If we compare just the first and second variants, they differ, but the basic building blocks are very similar (a full-sized background color, a big image block, a column with a number, and some text). Due to this, we can consider it the same component, just with two alternatives.

In the olden days, we would have had to do the image grid in Photoshop and then add it as one image to the page. Obviously, we could still do this, but that solution has never been particularly good for responsive websites, and using the picture element would work, but we would have to do several layouts in Photoshop and redo everything if we want to change a picture. We would need to do this every time this element gets added with different pictures.

But we wouldn’t be at this part in this article if there wasn’t an alternative! For a while now, it has been safe to use CSS grid, and it is able to solve this layout quite neatly with only a few lines of CSS.

CSS Grid allows us to define a formal grid definition — columns and rows — on the parent element and specify for the children where they should go within the grid. We also get the same justify and align capabilities that flex offers. This removes a lot of the need for wrapping divs and also makes the CSS slimmer.

One thing to note: As a result, your graphical layout can be different from the document structure in HTML.

Screen readers will still rely on the HTML structure, though, so put the most important information first and try to keep everything in a sensible order.

Now let’s get to our images. What is it that we need at a minimum? A container for the images and the images themselves. And you know what? With CSS Grid, that is actually enough — say goodbye to five layers of wrapping divs!

<div class="grid image-grid-3-m4">
   <img class="image-0 " src="" /> 
   <img class="image-1 " src="" />
   <img class="image-2 " src="" />
   <img class="image-3 " src="" />
</div>

A bit more on the markup. To make the styling easier, I added an index to each image (since we want to re-use them, it has to be a class, not an ID) and two classes on the surrounding div, which we will use to define the base styling: a grid utility class and a second one used for identifying the variant. For the variant with three images on the left and a fourth on the right in desktop view, I spent some time thinking about how to best solve the fourth image’s problem: do we add it to the container with the other images and try and move it to the other side, or do we move it on mobile, and so on. In the end, I decided to add the fourth image in the container for the images but hide it on the desktop via CSS and have a separate div in a second location with the same image for displaying in the desktop version. Using display:none will also hide that version from screen readers.

Now that we have the basic HTML and our images in place, it is time to focus on the CSS. If you are completely new to a CSS grid, this helpful article goes into the full syntax and explains it in detail. Unfortunately, I cannot describe the full syntax in this article.

First off, we need to define our grid. Since I had a design to work with, I used a tool that allowed me to put lines on top of the image, position one line at each edge of the image, and see the pixel dimensions in between. It would have been great if the designer had already used a formal grid and told me about it, but unfortunately, that was not the case, so I used the proportionate dimensions as an approximation of what I should use in the grid. Basically, I asked myself what the smallest common divisible number was for each — with some wiggle room — and used that. (Welcome to math class.) My goal was to have the same size for all grid columns and rows while being flexible on the number of columns or rows.

With this method, I determined that I wanted to have 14 columns on mobile and 7 rows plus some uniform gaps. This allowed me to approximate the distribution in the layout while keeping the Aspect ratios close to what they had envisioned. Based on that, we get the following CSS:

.grid {
  display: grid;
}

.image-grid-3-m4 {
  grid-template-rows: repeat(7, 1fr);
  grid-template-columns: repeat(14, 1fr);
    gap: 0.5rem;
}

With these four lines of CSS, we have a grid that is ready to be filled. If you follow along, you will notice that the images are now filling one grid cell each in the first row. This is the automatic layout mechanism that the browser uses, and depending on what you want to do, it can be ideal for defining an evenly laid-out design in seconds.

What is the minimum HTML for that? Again we do not need a lot of extras; a surrounding div and then one for each part is all that we need:

<div class="container">
  <div class="images"></div>
  <div class="numbering"></div>
  <div class="text"></div>
  <div class="single-image"></div>
</div>

For our example, all areas have a class name that identifies what they will hold later. If we look at the mobile layout, though, the number is on top of the images! The cool thing about a CSS grid is that you can layer elements. We already used that for the images above. As you can see, two of them overlap, and we can also do that for whole areas. The layering will be controlled by our old friend, the z-index. Same rules as always: the higher z-index wins and comes to the front.

With that in mind, let’s create two areas: one at the top with the images filling the area and the number as a top layer with most of it transparent to show the images, and the second area below for the text. We could use the grid columns and rows syntax we used earlier, but in this case, we can make our lives even easier with grid-template-areas. With this, you can add names to parts of your grid and then decide for each element which grid area it should appear in. Especially for the page or component frame, this is a much easier and faster way to work and be able to read it all again later than using all of the non-descript numbers.

I think this will be easier to understand with an example.

.container {  
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: 1fr;
  grid-template-rows: repeat(2, 1fr);
  gap: 1.2rem;
  grid-auto-flow: row;
  grid-template-areas:
    "numerology"
    "text";
}

.images { grid-area: numerology; }

.numbering { grid-area: numerology; }

.text { grid-area: text; }
.single-image {display:none}

We define the container as a grid once again, add two rows to it, and then use ‘grid-template-areas’ to give these rows a name. The syntax for this is very unusual for CSS, but it gives you a mini-view of your layout: Numerology is the name of the cell in the first row and Text in the second.

With those rows now having names, we can easily position our elements. Both the images and the container for the number go into the first row, and the text will go to the second row. So in the example above, we add the grid-area to the CSS for the class we applied to the div in the HTML. With those few lines, we have defined the layout.

To achieve the overlay effect for the number, the white box will be in its container and gets a fixed width and height. We can then use flex to center it in the container.

But how do we get from this to the desktop version, you may ask? Pretty easily, actually! For the overall design of the website, we are already using a 14-column grid on the desktop for all elements. If we overlay the design with some grid markers, we see the widths everything should take approximately.

Obviously, our named areas from the mobile view will not really help us for this version, but we can simply update them in a media query for our desktop view and also define different area names:

.container {  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(14, minmax(0, 1fr));
  grid-template-rows: repeat(2, 1fr);
  gap: 1.2rem;
  grid-auto-flow: row;
  grid-template-areas:
    "images images images images images . numbering numbering numbering single-image single-image single-image single-image single-image"
    "images images images images images . text text text single-image single-image single-image single-image single-image";
}

.images { grid-area: images; }

.numbering { grid-area: numbering; }

.text { grid-area: text; }

.single-image { grid-area: single-image; }

Let me be the first one to say that, yes, this is really not a pretty way of defining this, but unfortunately, the template-areas syntax does not include the repeat keyword as the column definition does.

But take a moment and have a closer look. What you can see is that we define the first five columns to belong to the images name in both rows, then we have a period, which means nothing goes here, then we have three columns for the numbering in row one and three for the text in row two, and at the end, five columns for single-image. Personally, I like to use an online generator that allows me to visually define these areas and copy the needed CSS.

Now with just under 20 lines of code, we have completely changed the layout without having touched the very simple HTML structure at all! But what about the alternative version for 2 and 4? They only use a slightly different layout, so why not add some classes for .version-a and .version-b on the container and have the grid-template-areas defined by that on the desktop? It is that simple. Look at the following:

  .version-1 {
      grid-template-areas:
    "images images images images images . numbering numbering numbering single-image single-image single-image single-image single-image"
    "images images images images images . text text text single-image single-image single-image single-image single-image";
  }
.version-1 .single-image {
  grid-area: single-image;
  display:block;
 }
  .version-2 {
        grid-template-areas:
    ". numbering numbering numbering . . images images images images images images images images"
    ". text text text . . images images images images images images images images";
  }

To me, this is still pretty crazy, to be honest. For the longest time, a layout like this would have been completely out of reach or very complicated to make and having shared HTML between versions 1 and 2 would have been near impossible, at least for the complete HTML. Now we can just wave a magic wand and update where it should show up. Pretty heady stuff.

Another practical example where this helped me a lot was defining areas for a product detail page on an e-commerce website. Being able to move elements around to where they make sense in different contexts is amazing, but it also means that you need to adjust your mental model a bit to how HTML and CSS are connected. And this is even just the beginning. With container queries and layers, there is much on the horizon that will open up a lot more possibilities in the future, and I am totally here for it!

Finally, here is the full version of the design with everything pulled together:

See the Pen Untitled [forked] by Pfenya.

Additionally, if you are curious about the final live webpage, it can be found here.

This year, I joined the team and helped design the survey together with the community which led to a number of improvements. If you write CSS frequently, investing a few minutes to fill it in could come back to you hundredfold, since implementers make decisions on what to work on based on the developer pain points identified through the survey every year. In fact, Chrome is funding work on the survey for this very reason.

So, how did past surveys help web developers? Let’s look at the impact in Chrome, as described to us by Nicole Sullivan, Product Manager for Chrome at Google:

“I showed the ‘Missing features’ section to my team before the pandemic and we got to work on it. Several things on that list are underway.”

Indeed, literally everything in that list is now being worked on or finished unless there was no (stable) specification for it:

• ✅ Container queries
  Size queries have shipped in Chrome 106 , style queries behind a flag.
• ✅ Parent selector/:has selector
  Shipped in Chrome 105.
• ✅ Nesting
  Currently underway, delayed a bit due to discussions in the CSS Working Group about last minute changes to the syntax.
• 🟡 Functions
  No specification to implement yet, but is being worked on in the CSS WG.
• ✅ Scoping
  Experimental implementation in Chrome 105 behind a flag.
• 🟡 Mixins
  No specification to implement yet, but ideas are being explored in the CSS WG.
• ✅ Subgrid
  Implementation underway.

Let’s look at the corresponding section in the 2020 results. A lot of overlap, but some additional items:

• ✅ Form elements styling
  Work is underway on a stylable <selectmenu> element to replace <select>, and an experimental implementation exists in Chrome behind a flag.
• 🟡 Conditional logic
  No specification to implement, but several proposals are being explored in in the CSS WG.
• ✅ Masonry layout
  Already worked on, experimental implementation in Firefox Nightly.

The 2021 corresponding section includes roughly the same items, with one new thing: color functions. And lo and behold, the color functions for which there is a stable specification are being implemented in Chrome as we speak, and Chrome has funded specification work on the rest.

And it’s not just Chrome. The focus of Interop 2022 was largely shaped by these results.

We’re taking on the world of styles and selectors to try and identify upcoming trends, and figure out what featurs and tools to learn next. What’s more, the survey results will also help browser vendors prioritize their roadmaps and work towards better compatibility between browsers.

What do you want to see more of in CSS? Better typography? New responsive layout features? New features to improve maintainability? Layout? Components? Something else? The sky is the limit! Make sure to share your CSS dreams with us in the survey, and they may well start coming true.