Don't use CSS position: absolute to overlay two elements

Roman — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 10:18:24 +0000

Let's asume you have the following HTML structure to overlay an image with a header:

<div class="card">
    <figure>
        <img src="https://picsum.photos/300/200" alt="Title">
    </figure>
    <header>
        <h2>Title of card</h2>
        <h3>With some short teaser text</h3>
    </header>
</div>

You could be tempted to position the header absolute:

.card {
    position: relative;
    width: 300px;
}
.card > * {
    margin: 0;
}
.card header {
    position: absolute;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    background-color: #fff3;
}

...but then you loose layout on the header. Use grid instead:

.card {
    display: grid;
    width: 300px;
}
.card > * {
    grid-area: 1/1;
    margin: 0;
}
.card header {
    background-color: #fff3;
}

Here is a codepen link with the full example.

Happy coding!

DEV Community: Roman

Don't use CSS position: absolute to overlay two elements