box-shadow is arguably one of the coolest things to come out of CSS3. However, I’ve been creating shadows in Adobe Fireworks and Photoshop for years, so I feel like CSS3’s box-shadow implementation is just too constrained. In an effort to expand my boxy horizons, I set out on a quest to create some cooler shadows.
Rocking out with box-shadow
My first attempt at making my shadows more dynamic still uses box-shadow but it extends its use to create a new effect. My main goal was to avoid using any extra elements, so all we need is a div and we’ll leverage pseudo elements to do the rest of the work.
What we’ve done is created two transparent pseudo elements behind our main element. These two pseudo elements then have box-shadow applied. This is done so that we can use 2D transforms to angle them, creating a 3D looking box-shadow for their parent element.
We also used the top, bottom, left, and right properties to keep the shadow from spilling out from the sides of the parent element.
Box-shadow… without box-shadow?
I was pretty happy with the previous idea, but it didn’t look as awesome as I hoped. My next idea was to create the same effect using gradients.
This time we’re still using our pseudo elements but instead of giving them box-shadows, we’ll give them gradients. We also used a new CSS3 property called filter. Make sure to check out all the nifty things it can do here. We just use the blur to soften the edges and make it look more like a shadow.
Oooooh… that’s way prettier.
While I was working on this project I ran across a site with an even cooler style of drop-shadow that pointed inward rather than outward:
All I really had to do was flip my last idea and we were good to go!
Conclusion
If you use any of these drop shadows, post a link in the comments! Also, if you come up with any alternative ideas or issues that should be noted, let me know.