The days when you needed an image editor such as Photoshop (opens in new tab) or Fireworks (opens in new tab) to create visuals to use on your web page are drawing to a close. It's now possible to create icons, logos and graphics entirely in CSS3 markup, as these inspirational experiments show.
Click through the links to find out more about how the designers created them - some have posted the markup they used and some tips and techniques on how to create similar images yourself.
01. Breaking Bad Title Card
Tim Pietrusky's 'tribute to the best series in the world (opens in new tab)', is, let's face it, a pretty spectacular recreation of the show's title card. Believe it or not, this CSS3 image has been made entirely using markup and an SVG.
Made by: Tim Pietrusky (opens in new tab)
02. TARDIS/Police Box
Doctor Who fanatic John Galantini has built this experimental TARDIS (opens in new tab) using CSS3 & HTML5. It's currently a work in progress and while it's a still image at the moment, there are plans to take it further by introducing interactive elements and animation.
Note: Some of the properties used in this CSS3 image aren't supported by any version of Internet Explorer. Also, Windows users may see rough fonts when vewing this site with Google Chrome.
Made by: John Galantini (opens in new tab)
03. Classic train
Taufik Nurrohman has developed this old-time pure stream train (opens in new tab) as a CSS3 image. He's paid close attention to its many meticulous details, particularly where the wheels are concerned. Outstanding!
Made by: Taufik Nurrohman (opens in new tab)
04. iOS icons
Louis Harboe has amazed developers with these astounding replica iOS icons (opens in new tab). Hard as it is to believe, he only used markup to create these bright, colourful and detailed CSS3 images.
Made by: Louis Harboe (opens in new tab)
NOTE: Viewed best in Safari 5 or Google Chrome.
05. Star Wars characters
Developer Kris Triplett set himself the challenge of creating the iconic Star Wars characters (opens in new tab) using only HTML and CSS markup. By the looks of these takes on Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper, we reckon he's done a pretty fine job!
Made by: Kris Triplett (opens in new tab)
06. Internet Explorer logo
Inspired by David Desandro’s Opera CSS logo (opens in new tab) and Zander Martineau’s pure CSS icons (opens in new tab), Andreas Jacob recreated the logo of the world's biggest browser (opens in new tab) as a CSS3 image.
Made by: Andreas Jacob (opens in new tab)
NOTE: Best viewed with Firefox 4, Safari 5 & Chrome 13dev.
07. Back to the Future logo
We love a bit of Back to the Future at Creative Bloq, and we were stoked to learn there was a Back to the Future font (opens in new tab), which Lucas Garron used to recreate the Back to the Future logo (opens in new tab) using markup.
Made by: Lucas Garron (opens in new tab)
NOTE: This CSS3 image is currently only designed to work in Safari, but "works okay in Chrome".
08. Twitter logo
When Twitter unveiled its restyled logo recently, Stockholm-based web agency Upperdog celebrated the moment with this CSS3 image (opens in new tab), which has been achieved using a variety of overlapping circles; illustrating the fundamentals behind its design.
Made by: Upperdog (opens in new tab)
09. iPhone 4
If you were impressed by the iOS icons above, you ain't seen nothing yet. Vasiliy Zubach's interactive pure CSS iPhone 4 (opens in new tab) behaves as you would expect, complete with sound effects and features icons of its own to boot! Inspiring stuff!
Made by: Vasiliy Zubach (opens in new tab)
NOTE: This CSS3 image is viewed best with the latest versions of Safari and Chrome in Mac OS X.
Have you spied an impressive CSS3 image on the web? Let us know about it in the comments!
