This article was originally posted on my personal blog
CSS is a powerful tool that can do almost anything once you have had a full grasp of it. Sometimes we're not aware of all the things you can do with CSS, and end up taking a complicated route to do what we need to be done. That's why we need to always practice CSS and grow our skills in it and knowledge of it.
I decided to take on a challenge to use CSS to create famous logos we see every day. It was a challenge that helped me think better in CSS and understand what means I can use to achieve the expected result.
I'll list the logos from the least difficult to the most difficult for me. You can check out the entire collection on CodePen.
This one's concept is pretty simple. We have the letters of Google in different colors, and that's mostly it. However, there was one problem which is the font. Google uses a custom font for the logo called Product Sans, so I had to resort to what looked the closest to it from Google Fonts, and I choose Poppins.
Youtube
This was another easy one. It was a box with a triangle inside essentially. However, I had some trouble with making the rounded borders similar to the logo and had to settle for the next closest thing.
My problem with the Facebook logo was similar to that of Google; I couldn't use the same font as it is a custom font, so I had to use Prompt as the f letter looked the most similar to the one in Facebook's logo.
The concept of the logo is simple in Instagram, however, the gradient was a little bit tough. I had to use the help of the internet as well to get it right, but it was a nice take on gradients and seeing what more can be done with it. I haven't really used gradients heavily before and all of my uses of it were pretty simple, so it was a good practice.
This one was interesting. So, as I was doing the entire logo in CSS I had to also make the phone shape in the middle with CSS as well. The problem that I had was that I couldn't figure out how to make the left side of the phone as rounded as it is in the logo. Usually, we use rounded corners a lot which are easy to make, but I've never really tried making sort of an arc shape in CSS.
So I searched online and I came upon the border-bottom-left-radius property, which I already knew. However, one thing I probably learned as a beginner but totally forgot about now is that this property can take two values, one for length and one for percentage. The length determines the size of the circle radius or the semi-major and semi-minor axes of the ellipses, whereas the percentage is of the width or height of the box(or element). The first value is for the horizontal axis whereas the second part is for the vertical axis. This property has 4 variations to achieve the same to all 4 sides of the element.
After learning this, I was able to make the phone shape look better and I applied this as well to other logos I worked on. I never really tried using this property before so I still need more practice with it.
This one was so frustrating to do and took the longest. I had to leave it at some point and come back to it later. Although it may not look perfect, I'm still really proud of it.
I had to rely a lot on :after and :before pseudo-elements and the border-radius property I learned with Whatsapp. I mostly needed to learn to look outside the box. I broke down the Twitter bird shape into 4 sections and worked my way through it. Although it was frustrating at some points, it was a needed practice not just for my skills in CSS, but also for my creativity as a developer.
Conclusion
I will do part 2 of this challenge and take on other famous logos. If you have ideas for logos that would present a good challenge, leave them in the comments! I also encourage you to take on similar challenges as it is a nice break from the same old and a good way to learn or relearn what we knew but forgot about.
Top comments (39)
While I applaud the effort and how-to's, I'd have a different take on it. For any dev, it's also good to learn and look OUTSIDE of their comfort zone and existing toolset. For this task, I'd rather go the way of SVG, at least for more complicated / graphical logos (like Twitter, WhatsApp). SVG is essentially close relative to HTML as both are variants of XML style markup, so it comes easy to any web dev. But it offers the power of actual drawing, arcs, points, lines, etc. Twitter should be relatively simple 13-point shape. WhatsApp could be 11 or so points. And you can use something like Inkscape to actually draw any of them, for practice, then simply copy the code. Bonus is that you'll learn new skills, expand old ones, it is way more useful for later.down the line for more complex shapes, and it offers 100% replication of the official logos (no guessing, font swapping, pr approximation).
As challenge try RedHat logo in both CSS and SVG and see what takes longer (including learning Inkscape, I think you'd be faster with SVG). Edit: one with the face+hat, not just the hat :)
But as a practice run or self driven workshop to do some more CSS, these are real nice :)
Thank you for your input. That’s another way to look at it. I might do another one for SVG as well, but the reason I chose CSS is because I use it more often so a practice is definitely needed. Also I already use Inkscape and know it’s capability so there’s no doubt in that.
Although yes it would be easier to do it all with SVG, but my purpose wasn’t to do it the easy way. I wanted to take on a challenge. I still think it’s a good idea for me to later on take on the same challenge but with SVG, so thank you for the input!
This article is great, meaningful and special than other articles. Fall guys is a simple game in which 60 players battle in a single match, with only one winner
@luxzg , any nice resources on learning svg? =) I am having trouble understanding how it works easily
Well, for my noob steps I usually go to sites like w3schools.com/graphics/svg_intro.asp :) But I personally also like to learn the hard way..trial error and lots of experimenting :)
If you install Inkscape you can try to create few simple files like: dot, straight line, circle, 2-point arc, triangle. Then save as SVG and open in any text editor to see how they are formed.
In basic form, it is xml style that describes shapes. Some shapes have predetermined tags, but going "drawing" mostly ends up with lines (paths). Just imagine it describes positions of pen drawing on canvas through coordinates, while defining stroke size (thickness of pen so to say) and color along the way.
Edit: just went through the link I posted real quick, it's real basic but good enough for quick start for all except paths. For a more in depth about paths you can use other resources, but I feel crucial for complete understanding is to know how vector graphics in general works. There are few types of points, simple points that is something like polyline if you have them connected, then two types of points that form a curve. If you have smooth wave like curve thats one type, if your points result in sharp .. "pointy" points (lol sorry, second language) that's other type. So if you were to draw a triangle you'd use one type, to draw a circle you'd use other type, to draw a moon-like shape you'd use third type, and to draw shape like capital letter "R" you'd mix and match. Thing is that with those 3 basic types, and using "move to" (moving pen in air) and "line to" (moving pen on canvas) you can form any line and shape, then color it with stroke and fills of different kinds... And you can create wonders, all in perfect vector graphics that can be resized infinitely.
Hope my edit helps some more to point you in the right direction :) In short SVG is VECTOR graphics described in XML. Once you learn vectors and XML you'll learn SVG automatically :D
Also, good way to learn even more about vectors, paths, strokes, and.moveTo LineTo logicnis by learning about Ghostscript and ... In few more tutorials you'll go from HTML to SVG to Ghostscript to PDF.. And then your views of digital worlds will expand crazily, yet will suddenly become "easy" and quite understandable :) I hope :D good luck!
Thanks for your detailed explanation! =) Just by reading your explanation I understand more - especially that SVG is a description of coordinate (vector), stroke size and color. Will certainly try to create SVG by using Inkscape and observe what its SVG in text is.
Will explore Ghostscript too, hear about it but didn't look very close at it before. I am mainly interested in SVG due to its capabilities to create very nice performant animation in the web.
We like Chris Coyier's book: abookapart.com/products/practical-svg
and css-tricks.com/lodge/svg/
Going through the css-trick url. Looking compact and nice. Thank you!
Can barely imagine how long the twitter logo with all those absolute positions must've taken
PS: If you want a real challenge, try to redo the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy logo, if that's even humanly possible
It took some time but I felt so proud when I finished it
Damn. That's really cool. :D
Thank you Muhammad!
Thank you!
Splendid.You can try VS Code Logo,Github logo.
Thanks! I’ll add that to my list
Great job, that's a great way to challenge ourselves and grow !
Thanks Jean!
wow, I kinda say,, you did a good effort on the twitter logo.. nise nise 😁
Thanks!
You've done a great job! Thanks for sharing the styles because some of them give me insights
Thanks and glad it helps!
Oh wow this is awesome 👌 maybe one day I'll try a similar project :)
I recommend as it is a nice practice
Nice job!!