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Awards That Look Beyond the Flashy
3.10.2019
Dan Mall is judging the Communication Arts Interactive 2020 awards. These types of things are usually a celebration of flashy, short-lived, one-off designs. Those things are awesome, but Dan has more in mind:
I’d love to award work that demonstrates creative use of the highest level of color...
A Dark Mode Toggle with React and ThemeProvider
25.9.2019
I like when websites have a dark mode option. Dark mode makes web pages easier for me to read and helps my eyes feel more relaxed. Many websites, including YouTube and Twitter, have implemented it already, and we’re starting to see it trickle onto many other sites as well.
In this tutorial, we’re...
Link Underlines That Animate Into Block Backgrounds
23.9.2019
It's a cool little effect. The default link style has an underline (which is a good idea) and then on :hover you see the underline essentially thicken up turning into almost what it would have looked liked if you used a background-color on the link instead.
Here's an example of the effect on...
A Color Picker for Product Images
17.9.2019
Sounds kind of like a hard problem doesn't it? We often don't have product shots in thousands of colors, such that we can flip out the <img src="product-red.jpg" alt="red product"> with <img src="product-blue.jpg" alt="blue product">. Nor do we typically have products in a vector...
How to Build a Color Customizer App for a 3D Model with Three.js
17.9.2019
Learn how to create a complete color customizer app for a 3D model of a chair using Three.js in this in-depth tutorial.
How to Build a Color Customizer App for a 3D Model with Three.js was written by Kyle Wetton and published on Codrops
Ghost Buttons with Directional Awareness in CSS
13.9.2019
It would surprise me if you'd never come across a ghost button 👻. You know the ones: they have a transparent background that fills with a solid color on hover. Smashing Magazine has a whole article going into the idea. In this article, we’re going to build a ghost button, but that will...
How to Dynamically Change the Colors of Product Images using CSS Blend Mode and SVG
3.9.2019
Learn a simple technique for adding a color swap functionality to your product images by creating an SVG and applying a mix-blend-mode to the composition.
How to Dynamically Change the Colors of Product Images using CSS Blend Mode and SVG was written by Kyle Wetton and published on Codrops
Collective #544
29.8.2019
SVG Artista * Optional chaining * Color Palette Generator * Label Studio * Perfect loops in Processing
Collective #544 was written by Pedro Botelho and published on Codrops
A Glassy (and Classy) Text Effect
29.8.2019
The landing page for Apple Arcade has a cool effect where some "white" text has a sort of translucent effect. You can see some of the color of the background behind it through the text. It's not like knockout text where you see the exact background. In this case, live video is playing underneath....
Contextual Utility Classes for Color with Custom Properties
14.8.2019
In CSS, we have the ability to access currentColor which is tremendously useful. Sadly, we do not have access to anything like currentBackgroundColor, and the color-mod() function is still a ways away.
With that said, I am sure I am not alone when I say I'd like to style some links based on...
In Search of a Stack That Monitors the Quality and Complexity of CSS
12.8.2019
Many developers write about how to maintain a CSS codebase, yet not a lot of them write about how they measure the quality of that codebase. Sure, we have excellent linters like StyleLint and CSSLint, but they only help at preventing mistakes at a micro level. Using a wrong color notation, adding...
Design Principles for Developers: Processes and CSS Tips for Better Web Design
8.8.2019
It is technically true that anyone can cook. But there’s a difference between actually knowing how to prepare a delicious meal and hoping for the best as you throw a few ingredients in a pot. Just like web development, you might know the ingredients—<span>, background-color, .heading-1—but...
CSS prefers-reduced-motion Media Query
30.7.2019
When I started in the web development industry, media queries were limited — screen and print were the two media queries I was most often using. More than a decade later, media queries have advanced to various screen units, feature checking, and even color scheme preference. I’ve been...
Datalist is for suggesting values without enforcing values
26.7.2019
Have you ever had a form that needed to accept a short, arbitrary bit of text? Like a name or whatever. That's exactly what <input type="text"> is for. There are lots of different input types (and modes!), and picking the right one is a great idea.
But this little story is about something...
Managing Multiple Backgrounds with Custom Properties
15.7.2019
One cool thing about CSS custom properties is that they can be a part of a value. Let's say you're using multiple backgrounds to pull off a a design. Each background will have its own color, image, repeat, position, etc. It can be verbose!
You have four images:
body {
background-position:
...
Color Inputs: A Deep Dive into Cross-Browser Differences
12.7.2019
In this article, we'll be taking a look at the structure inside <input type='color'> elements, browser inconsistencies, why they look a certain way in a certain browser, and how to dig into it. Having a good understanding of this input allows us to evaluate whether a certain cross-browser...
A Quick Look at the First Public Working Draft for Color Adjust Module 1
29.5.2019
We've been talking a lot about Dark Mode around here ever since Apple released it as a system setting in MacOS 10.14 and subsequently as part of Safari. It's interesting because of both what it opens up as as far as design opportunities as well as tailoring user experience based on actual user...
Color contrast accessibility tools
29.5.2019
Accessibility is all the rage these days, specifically when it comes to color contrast. I’ve stumbled upon a couple of tools this week that I think are pretty nifty for helping make sure that all of the text on our websites is legible regardless of what background color they might have.
First...
The “Inside” Problem
20.5.2019
So, you're working on a design. You need a full-width container element because the design has a background-color that goes from edge-to-edge horizontally. But the content inside doesn’t necessarily need to be edge-to-edge. You want to:
Limit the width (for large screens)
Pad the edges
Center...
Change Color of SVG on Hover
13.5.2019
There are a lot of different ways to use SVG. Depending on which way, the tactic for recoloring that SVG in different states or conditions — :hover, :active, :focus, class name change, etc. — is different.
Let's look at the ways.
Inline SVG
Inline SVG is my favorite way to use...