CSS Shadow Effects That Make a Statement

Elevate your web design with mesmerizing CSS shadow effects. Discover techniques and examples to add depth, dimension, and visual impact to your elements. Unleash your creativity and create stunning shadows that will leave a lasting impression on your visitors.

Are you tired of having a boring website design? We got your back with CSS Shadow Effects.

CSS shadow effects are a great way to add stylish effects to make your web pages look more elegant than before. It is pretty easy to use and provides an array of different options which can be applied in other contexts. Using the shadow property, we can create drop shadows on text or boxes, providing an eye-catching design to bring life to your website.

What Are CSS Shadow Effects?

Shadow effects are a popular design technique that can add depth and dimension to an element. They are commonly used in web design to create the appearance of depth and space within a flat, two-dimensional layout. A shadow is an area of darkness created by an object blocking a light source.

In design, shadows can be created using drop shadow, horizontal shadow position, layered shadows, blur effect, box shadow, and text-shadow. Using shadows can make a design look more dynamic and visually exciting and help create a sense of hierarchy or emphasis. In this article, we will explore the different types of shadow effects and how they can be used to make a statement in your designs.

Different CSS Shadow Effects

Here are some examples of different CSS Shadow Effects:

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Multiple Shadows

Design of Andrew Spencer

To make these multiple shadows, you just need to define various shadow values and separate them with a comma. The result is a “natural” shadow that looks like a light shining on the page.

Popout Text with Background Image Shadow

Design of  Mark Mead

Adding a text-shadow can make the text more visible and distinct from its background.

CSS Dashed Shadow

Design of  Lucas Bebber

Do you want something different? Using this pure CSS hipster-ish style dashed shadow will amaze you.

Text Shadow CSS Snippets

Design of 𝔑icolas ℜeibnitz

Check out these variations of elegant shadow, deep shadow, inset shadow, and retro shadow for your reference.

Direction-aware text-shadow

Design of Martin Picod

Create stunning 3D light effects with direction-fueled text-shadow, unlock the powers of CSS variables, and give your audience a unique perspective that will take their breath away!

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Isolating CSS Box-Shadows

Design of TundraTech

To create a single shadow:

  • Use a negative spread and offset in the desired direction with an equal distance blur radius.
  • When making inset shadows, the space remains constant but the offset moves in the opposite direction.
  • Combine single-side rules into a comma-separated list to have multiple sides or shadows.

Zebra Gradient Text Shadow CSS+SVG

Design of Tommy Hodgins

Text Shadow Compilation

Design of Theodoros Mouratidis

You will enjoy this collection of unique text-shadows in CSS. There are nice looking ones as well as “unique” ones too.

CSS Shadow Effects

Design of Evgeniy

CSS Pixel Animation

Design of Lorena Sarasua

Picture a pixelated woman in 8-bit using box-shadows on a single div.

Inset text Shadow – CSS background-clip

Design of Alex Brown

An excellent demonstration for inset text-shadows.

Text Shadow CSS Flat

Design of Dennys Dionigi

Long Shadow Generator | Prototype

Design of Jessica Skye

Long-shadow generator. You can play around with the length and color gradation.

text shadow css

Design of Lucas Azevedo

Beautiful Wedding Page

Design of Eric Franklin

Just a responsive site layout I made for a wedding.

CSS Shadow Effects

Design of Mohsin Saiyed

Button hover effects with box-shadow

Design of Giana

Making some basic animations with box-shadows. No extra elements or even pseudo-elements are required.

cookie clicker

Design of Broyojo

Week One Example

Design of Andy Hullinger

Displaying shadow effect on Leo Burnett’s Quotes.

Variable Longshadow with Gradients Mixin

Design of Dario Corsi

A Sass mixin can be used to create long-shadows with different colors and spreads.

Animated Text-Shadow

Design of Erin E. Sullivan

A fantastic combination of animation and CSS with a bounce effect.

SAVE!

Design of Sebastian Opperman

Quirky CSS banner using box-shadows.

A pen by Circuit27

Design of Circuit27

Task3 Text Effects and shadows

Design of Nisitha-kode

Complex Text Shadow Examples

Design of Chris Coyier

Inspiration of text-shadows for you.

A Pen by Miriam

Design of Miriam

Simple Skewed Text Shadow (CSS)

Design of SpillnerDesign

Mousemove Text Shadow CSS and Javascript

Design of Anastasia Kas

A Pen by Dylan

Design of Dylan

Layered text-shadow effect CSS

Design of Shireen Taj

You can turn any simple text into beautiful art with layered text-shadow. An excellent CSS style that will elevate your website.

A collection of CSS text-shadow and pattern effects

Design of Ashley Watson-Nolan

The pen utilizes text-shadow and hover transitions to generate text effects. Additionally, it features a textured hover text effect and incorporates SVG.

3D Cartoon Text w/CSS text-shadow

Design of Fielding Johnston

Exploring the application of CSS text-shadow and the typeface “Luckiest Guy” from Google Fonts.

Box-shadow spill

Design of timaronan

Box-shadows can give a visual effect of a three-dimensional appearance.

SCSS 3D text mixin

Design of Liam Egan

A fresh and straightforward mix of SCSS creating 3D block-looking text with text-shadows.

box-shadow pseudo loaders

Design of Jhey

  • Box-shadow on pseudo elements can produce loading effects.
  • Adding a class to an element could make a loading animation display as an overlay.

Text Shadow CSS

Design of Erik Cruz

Play around with the CSS text-shadow property.

Isolating CSS Box Shadows

Design of TundraTech

CSS fundamentals can be misinterpreted. To create a single shadow:

  • Use a negative spread and offset in the desired direction with an equal distance blur radius.
  • When making inset shadows, the space remains constant but the offset moves in the opposite direction.
  • Combine single-side rules into a comma-separated list to have multiple sides or shadows.

Live stripes

Design of yoksel

Created using box-shadows. CSS only.

CSS 3D floating Credit Card!

Design of Kivanfan

Groovy CSS Effect

Design of Daniel Gonzalez

Use vintage 1960’s font and combine with effect using CSS text-shadow property, SASS function, and mixins to keep code DRY.

Netflix-style text animation with CSS

Design of Nooray Yemon

Using CSS and SCSS function on text animation gives you a long text-shadow.

jQuery | Simple Theme Coloring (CSS Variables)

Design of Tobias Bogliolo

3D Cartoon Text w/CSS text-shadow

Design of Fielding Johnston

Showcase how CSS text-shadow is used to create the 3D cartoon effect.

CSS text shadow effect

Design of Mark

A CSS text background shadow effect using the content attribute.

CSS box shadow animation

Design of jun xu

If you want a nice hover animation, try using box-shadow.

text-shadow

Design of IMarty

You will enjoy the modern shadow effect for text with CSS text-shadow—a nice variation of realistic shadows.

Cool title

Design of William A. Keyon

Pretty shadow

Design of Alex Moore

Quite an interesting, lovely text-shadow.

Headlight.js – text and box shading based on cursor movement

Design of Twixes

Simple CSS BAR-GRAPH

Design of Unmesh Shukla

This is a customizable CSS 3D Gradient Meter designed to display statistics cleanly and responsively. It includes a small amount of JavaScript to ensure responsiveness and utilizes SCSS random() for color selection. The 3D feature is exclusive to Webkit.

Text Shadow Effect

Design of Monica Wheeler

Experimenting with text and shadow to create a unique design inspired by Instagram.

Neon text-shadow effect

Design of Erik Jung

A cool neon text-shadow effects.

Awesome Text-Shadow

Design of Nguyen Hoang Nam

This is your pick if you are looking for a flat and straightforward text-shadow effect.

A pen by Nikita Jadhao

Design of Nikita Jadhao

CSS box-shadow property // Box Shadow // Example

Design of Waterproof Web Wizard

Icon Mock Background

Design of Nathan Taylor

You can choose a color using the sliders. Then, it will automatically generate a complimentary gradient background and shadow.

It begins with a circle

Design of Nathan Taylor

Take the joystick and pull it to interact with the website.

box-shadow border

Design of PositionRelativ

With horizontal and vertical properties, you can play around with the CSS box-shadow property. You can even blur the box-shadow property.

Long Shadow Gradient Mixin

Design of Rory Ashford-Bentley

This Sass (SCSS) mixed efficiently produces lengthy shadow gradients appropriate for both text-shadow and single-box shadow.

Box Shadow Editor

Design of Coding Journey

koro

Design of Nikita Jadhao

SVG Multi-Color Speedtest Gauge

Design of Brandon McConnell

The speed test simulator was developed using SVG, CSS, and jQuery.

dropplets

Design of Oscar Salazar

SVG filters and CSS shadows.

Text shadow CSS

Design of Smoothemes

Simple Skewed Text Shadow (CSS)

Design of Matt Sullivan

Nice Looking CSS box-shadow

Design of Airen

Performant CSS Box-Shadow Transition

Design of Joshua Bemenderfer

3D Interactive Card Hover

Design of Josh

The hover effect on this card rotates it using CSS 3-D transformations, with the glare position determined by the same calculation used for the card rotation. Steam’s 3-D card interaction inspires the design.

FAQ on CSS Shadow Effects

What’s up with these shadow effects in CSS, anyway?

These shadow effects in CSS, they’re wicked! They let you add depth and dimension to your web elements. Think about it as giving your flat designs a bit of 3D pop. Shadows can be added to boxes (like divs) and text.

All this magic is done using properties like box-shadow and text-shadow.

How do I add a simple shadow to a box?

Ah, creating shadows, that’s cool! For a box, use the box-shadow property. The syntax goes like this: box-shadow: horizontal-offset vertical-offset blur-radius spread-radius color;. Each value separates by spaces.

Offset values decide where your shadow will fall, the blur-radius controls how fuzzy it gets, spread-radius decides its size, and color, well that’s self-explanatory, right?

What’s this “inset” thing I’ve seen in box shadows?

“Inset”, it’s a sneaky little keyword. Normally, your shadows are outside of the box, but with “inset”, you bring the shadow inside the box.

This creates an inner shadow. You just put inset at the beginning of your box-shadow value, and voila, inner shadow!

How can I use multiple shadows on a single element?

Heard about layering shadows? Super neat! You just separate each shadow with a comma in your box-shadow or text-shadow property. Like: box-shadow: shadow1, shadow2, shadow3;.

More shadows, more depth. Just keep in mind, your topmost shadow in the stack should be first in your list.

Can I make my text shadowy?

Text shadows? Oh yeah, you can! Use the text-shadow property, it’s a lot like box-shadow. The syntax is: text-shadow: horizontal-offset vertical-offset blur-radius color;. It adds a shadow to your text, making it more dramatic.

Is it possible to create a glowing effect with CSS shadows?

Glowing effects? Totally possible! To make an element appear to glow, just use a large blur-radius and a bright color for your shadow.

It’s like adding a soft light behind your object. For a stronger glow, stack multiple shadows with increasing blur-radii.

How can I animate CSS shadows?

Animating shadows? It’s a whole level up! Use CSS animations or transitions on your box-shadow or text-shadow properties.

When your animations or transitions change the shadow’s properties, you get that shadow moving effect, adding some life to your page.

Can I use CSS shadows to create 3D effects?

3D effects with CSS shadows? You bet! By skillfully layering multiple shadows, you can create an illusion of depth, making your element look like it’s floating. It’s a bit tricky, but when done right, it looks awesome.

Can CSS shadows affect the performance of my website?

Well, here’s a downer, yes they can. CSS shadows require more processing power, especially animated or layered shadows.

So, if you go all shadow crazy, it might slow down your website’s performance. As always, moderation is key!

Are there any browser compatibility issues with CSS shadows?

Bummer alert! Older browsers might have trouble with CSS shadows. But, most modern browsers support box-shadow and text-shadow pretty well.

So unless you’re designing for the Stone Age, you should be good to go! Always check browser compatibility if you’re unsure, though.

Final Words on These CSS Shadow Effects

Having a clean and aesthetically beautiful website does not need to be a complicated task. With a simple CSS Shadow Effects technique, you can elevate your website appearance from mediocre to stunning, elegant, and beautiful.

By learning all about shadows, you are well on your way to becoming a shadow expert! Practice makes perfect when designing shadows and finding your style. You can use box-shadow layers to get creative with the designs of elements or combine colors for a personalized look. To make sure the shadow looks great on all devices, it is essential to test them out.

If you liked this article about CSS shadow effects, you should check out this article about CSS animation libraries.

There are also similar articles discussing cool CSS buttons, CSS blockquotes, CSS blur effects, and CSS charts.

And let’s not forget about articles on CSS headers, CSS parallax effects, CSS animations on scroll, and CSS page transitions.

CSS Shadow Effects That Make a Statement

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The Author

Dirk Gavor

Slider Revolution high priest on the mission to find the line between not enough coffee and just a little too much coffee. Same with beer.

For any inquiries or additional resources related to this blog post or else, please don't hesitate to comment below or email me at dirk@stage.rvsldr.com.

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