CSS — Smashing Magazine

November 3, 2026 — Replacing JavaScript with a modern CSS feature can simplify a piece of code while making the wider application harder to reason about. Gabriel Shoyombo explores what happens when logic is split between CSS and JavaScript, sharing practical guidance to help you keep complexity in check during migration. Read more…
October 20, 2026 — Design systems thrive on consistency, so where does randomness fit in? Through playful demos of organic typography, bouncing letters, and splayed cards, Brecht De Ruyte shows how the new CSS random() function brings a little imperfection to the web without JavaScript libraries or preprocessor loops that generate hundreds of lines of static CSS. Read more…
August 20, 2026 — Discover SMIL, the often-overlooked way to animate SVGs that works inside <img> tags and can fully animate everything in an SVG without JavaScript. Read more&mldr;
May 28, 2026 — Seventy percent of websites still fail basic WCAG contrast checks in 2025. After years of design system tooling, accessibility linters, and JavaScript libraries, nothing moved the needle. We didn’t need better libraries. We needed better CSS. contrast-color() is that better CSS. Read more&mldr;
May 21, 2026 — Meet sibling-index() and sibling-count(). Staggered cascade effect in one line of CSS without :nth-child() rules or JS workarounds. Works for 5 items or 5,000. Read more&mldr;
March 12, 2026 — For years, developers have been hacking around the limitations of border-radius, using clip-path, SVG masks, and fragile workarounds just to get anything other than round corners. The new corner-shape property finally changes that, opening the door to beveled, scooped, and squircle corners. Read more&mldr;
March 2, 2026 — What happens if you rebuild a single tooltip using the browser’s native model without the aid of a library? The Popover API turns tooltips from something you simulate into something the browser actually understands. Opening and closing, keyboard interaction, Escape handling, and much of the accessibility now come from the platform itself, not from ad-hoc JavaScript. Read more&mldr;
February 5, 2026 — Prescriptive class name conventions are no longer enough to keep CSS maintainable in a world of increasingly complex interfaces. Can the new @scope rule finally give developers the confidence to write CSS that can keep up with modern front ends? Read more&mldr;
January 27, 2026 — In CSS, we can create “stacking contexts” where elements are visually placed one on top of the next in a three-dimensional sense that creates the perception of depth. Stacking contexts are incredibly useful, but they’re also widely misunderstood and often mistakenly created, leading to a slew of layout issues that can be tricky to solve. Read more&mldr;
January 14, 2026 — CSS relative colour values are now widely supported. In this article, pioneering author and web designer Andy Clarke shares practical techniques for using them to theme and animate SVG graphics. Read more&mldr;
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