Website design and its functionality involve much more than just graphics, photos, and the convenient layout of text and images. It's also about animations and a lot of behind-the-scenes work that’s often invisible to the average user. Most of the time, they don’t even realize it’s happening. All they see is a beautifully styled and informative page in their browser. Sometimes it’s an interactive project, sometimes a loading animation. But either way, it all appears seamless and simple to them.
However, the amount of work developers and designers put into making this magic happen is something users rarely consider. And yet, we all love small effects and transitions or find ourselves thinking: “Wow, those toggles look different and unique”, or admiring parallax effects and so much more. Today, CSS alone can handle an impressive range of tasks across all major modern browsers.
Some developers aim not just to build something functional, but to invent something new or simply beautiful—setting trends, shaping new directions, or popularizing existing UI patterns. While such experiments may not always be ideal for production platforms, they’re incredibly inspiring and educational.
We’ve selected some of the most creative and visually stunning CSS experiments that demonstrate just how powerful and versatile CSS can be. All of the examples below can be explored via CodePen, where you’ll also find the full code and live animations.
Gradient Loader
Many websites feature animated loaders that display a percentage to indicate how much of the page has loaded. But MaxStalker took a different approach, using gradients and dynamic sizing to create a visually unique, infinite loading animation.
Some will recognize this as similar to the subtle Facebook loading animation—though theirs is much smaller in scale. Most sites still use GIFs for this purpose since CSS compatibility can vary slightly across browser versions, while GIFs are universally supported.
This example is built entirely in CSS3, proving such loaders are totally possible using only stylesheets. With a bit of imagination, you could customize height, colors, gradients, and speed.
Toggle Switch
At first glance, this toggle seems simple. You switch between AM and PM, and a visual change appears (sun or stars). Nothing unusual—until you notice the seamless animation that transitions the sun into the moon. What’s more, it’s all created with pure CSS. No images of stars or celestial bodies—everything is hand-coded.
How can this be used? Easily—for example, as a theme switcher in a user dashboard or just a playful UI touch. With basic CSS knowledge, you could even replace the day/night theme with any two events.
This example clearly shows the design potential of CSS.
Mouse Trail
If you’ve followed our blog for a while, you’ve probably seen numerous examples where the mouse cursor is tracked across the site (francoisrisoud, lakewood, wowtapes). The cursor often becomes a circle used to draw, interact, or animate content. Typically, such effects are created using JavaScript to track X/Y coordinates.
Technically, you still need JavaScript to gather and process that cursor data. But this CSS-only version shows that visual mouse tracking can be simulated without scripts. A small circle follows your cursor, creating a simple but dynamic effect.
It may not suit every website or user, but for certain layouts, it can serve as a unique little touch.
Amusement Park
There are countless vector illustrations and icons online. Many of them are used in web and mobile design. But what if you created your own SVG illustrations and brought them to life with CSS?
That’s exactly what Vladimir Gashenko did in his experimental project “Amusement Park.” It only works in browsers that support SVG, but where supported, it’s flawless. All objects are properly scaled relative to each other and drawn with stunning detail.
Notice the cloud animation, hot air balloon, and Ferris wheel—there’s even subtle movement in the smallest elements. Only the carousel is static.
It’s simple, elegant, and entirely CSS-based. Nothing like this existed in pure CSS until recently. In time, we may see more projects using code alone—no Photoshop or Illustrator images required.
Möbius Strip
Many are familiar with the concept of a twisted loop with reversed ends—a Möbius strip. Making one from paper is easy. Modeling it in 3D isn’t too hard either.
Creating one in pure CSS, however, is more complex. You’ll want to add gradients and volume to show the twist and incorporate subtle transitions. Yet, it's possible.
The CodePen example is impressive, and what's more surprising—it uses under 90 lines of CSS and only 6 lines of HTML.
While this might not appear on production websites, it could make a great animated loader—especially with a percentage counter added. More importantly, it shows CSS can handle even complex 3D illusions.
Construction App
A small app where users build a map with mountains, forests, and structures can be fun to create. These are usually JS-based, since you need interactions (drag, rotate, color), spatial layout, and 3D effects.
Vincent Durand built his entirely with CSS. It includes arrows for rotating or lifting objects, color changes, and more—all via simple UI clicks. Every element is a cube of different size, including a pseudo-water block with one colored face.
A wild CSS use case—but it works. And it’s inspiring.
iOS Icons
Earlier we showed an SVG-based amusement park. Now, meet fully CSS-drawn iOS 7 icons. Peter Schmiz recreated all icons using only HTML and CSS.
No SVG files involved—each icon is built with span/div elements, and styled in CSS. They look perfectly accurate and sharp.
Beautiful, colorful, precise. The set includes 22 icons. Pay special attention to the details in Weather or Maps—easy to build with time and patience.
Slack Loader
If you’ve opened the Slack homepage, you’ve likely seen their animated loading icon. It resembles Google’s color scheme: rotating colored bars forming a grid. They vanish, reappear, and animate endlessly.
This CodePen version mimics it with a single HTML element—just CSS. It’s impressive.
The CSS uses fewer than 100 lines but defines colors, animations, and layout. Of course, you shouldn’t use this loader on production sites—Slack’s branding is protected. But it’s a great learning tool.
Solar System
Lastly, here’s a stunning CSS-only representation of our solar system, created by Malik Dellidj. It’s accurate, beautiful, and entirely image-free.
Every planet is styled via CSS, each with a different orbital speed. The background is also customizable.
It’s hard to imagine the time spent calculating those animations. But the result is breathtaking. And yes, one year = 30 seconds of real time.
Conclusion
You’ll find many more CSS experiments online—but these are some of the most beautiful and inspiring. Each one was built using pure CSS, without scripts or images.
Sure, they required incredible time and effort. But they also open up creative possibilities for web and mobile projects. If something looks reusable—you can study the code and build your own version.
So no—web development, coding, and layout design aren’t boring at all. It’s all about creativity and passion. Some love Photoshop; others enjoy drawing with code.