101 CSS clip-path Examples

Static text is a relic of print media. In the digital realm, typography should possess momentum and weight. This component transforms a standard headline into a kinetic event. By synchronizing rotation with advanced clipping masks, we create the illusion of text being physically “printed” or “wiped” into existence at high velocity. It is visceral, rhythmic, and designed to command attention without screaming.

This Clip-Path Shapes Explorer serves as both a learning tool and a generator for CSS polygons. It allows users to cycle through a library of pre-defined shapes (triangles, hexagons, stars, etc.) and instantly see the result rendered in the browser. The tool also provides the exact CSS code needed to recreate the shape, complete with syntax highlighting.

Navigation should not be a static list; it should be a spotlight on user intent. This component reimagines the humble tab bar as a physical instrument. By simulating a magnifying glass that glides over options, we create a tactile sense of selection. It transforms the active state from a mere color change into a focused, immersive event.

This Elastic Animated Star Rating component turns a mundane feedback form into a delightful micro-interaction. Instead of simple color changes, the stars spring to life with a satisfying “elastic” pop when clicked. The animation logic handles both filling (bouncing in) and emptying (shrinking away) states, making the interaction feel physically responsive and engaging.

This Modern CSS Star Rating Component represents a major shift in UI development, moving complex logic from JavaScript to pure CSS. It utilizes the powerful :has() selector to track sibling states, allowing the UI to highlight stars both before and after the interaction point. The stars themselves are created using clip-path instead of bulky SVG icons, resulting in a lightweight, scalable, and highly performant rating system.

This Rounded Triangle CSS Image Mask offers a mathematically perfect way to shape visuals into equilateral triangles with soft, professional edges. It is an ideal choice for high-end portfolio galleries, creative team sections, or landing pages where standard rectangular or circular crops feel too conventional. By leveraging modern CSS math, the shape remains perfectly symmetrical regardless of the image dimensions.

The Staggered Panel Curtain Menu is a creative full-screen navigation concept that breaks the traditional “fade-in” mold. It uses a series of vertical panels that drop down at slightly different intervals, creating a sophisticated “curtain” reveal. This effect is achieved by combining the precision of GSAP with the flexibility of CSS clip-path and variable fonts, making it an ideal choice for high-end creative portfolios or modern agency websites.

This Cursor-Tracking Spotlight Reveal Effect creates a sophisticated “x-ray” or “flashlight” interaction. Initially, the user sees plain text. As the mouse moves, a circular mask follows the cursor, revealing a hidden image underneath and simultaneously inverting the text color to white within the circle. This technique adds depth and playfulness to portfolio links or gallery items without disrupting the layout.

A scenic forest landscape with a house that smoothly tilts and rotates following the mouse movement, revealing the scene’s depth through a parallax effect.

A highly detailed, scalable vector-style portrait of an athlete created entirely with CSS clip-path polygons, layering shapes, shadows, and highlights without any image files or SVG tags.

A pure CSS character illustration of Dipper Pines, constructed from geometric primitives using absolute positioning and vmin units for responsiveness. The design leverages border-radius, transform, clip-path masking, and pseudo-elements to shape detailed features like the signature pine tree hat and hair, all styled with CSS variables and a custom web font.

A pure CSS cartoon illustration of a giraffe constructed from geometric primitives using absolute positioning. It leverages box-shadow for efficient pattern repetition (spots, clouds), clip-path for complex shapes like the mane, and CSS variables for a consistent pastel color palette.

A pure CSS illustration of a house constructed from geometric primitives using clip-path for complex shapes and transform for perspective. It features a warm color palette managed via CSS variables, extensive drop-shadow usage for foliage density, and linear-gradient for detailed window reflections.

A stylish, detailed vector-style portrait with depth and shadows, fully implemented using pure CSS gradients and clipping paths.

Images take on an aesthetic, modern squircle shape (resembling iOS icons) with a soft drop shadow that perfectly follows their contour.

A pure CSS illustration of a knight constructed from geometric primitives. It employs repeating-linear-gradient for shield textures, clip-path for armor shaping, and extensive box-shadow duplication to render limbs and details efficiently, creating a stark, high-contrast monochrome aesthetic.

A spotlight navigation menu where the active state is highlighted by a moving “light beam” element.

A rhythmic animation where an image is revealed through a burger-shaped SVG clip mask, with layers scaling in sequence via GSAP.

A unique, visually impressive effect where the user moves a “liquid,” morphing lens to compare two scenes, demonstrating advanced use of SVG and DOM manipulation for visual UX.

An emotionally charged and technically complex component that uses kinetic animations simulating digital glitches or geometric transformations to dramatically reveal hidden content.

A unique, dynamic, and responsive collage of images that uses advanced CSS techniques to create a 3D-like geometric pattern.

A sophisticated hover effect utilizing CSS Houdini to animate a complex image mask.

A highly stylized range slider utilizing box-shadow on the slider thumb to render the track, masked by a clip-path polygon on the parent container to create a unique slanted aesthetic.

A highly sophisticated holographic badge simulation utilizing CSS 3D transforms and layered mix-blend-mode effects. JavaScript tracks mouse movement to dynamically update CSS variables, driving complex parallax shifts, lighting gradients, and SVG-masked glares for a realistic, tactile depth experience.

A cinematic landing page powered by GSAP ScrollSmoother and Observer plugins. It features a complex preloader sequence transitioning into a full-screen slider where images are revealed via intricate clip-path polygon animations triggered by scroll gestures.

A delightful “High Five” interaction button powered by GSAP and MorphSVGPlugin.

A sophisticated star rating component featuring fractional fills implemented via CSS clip-path. The JavaScript class generates SVG stars and orchestrates a staggered entrance animation, while SCSS keyframes drive complex scale, rotate, and shockwave effects for a tactile, gamified feel.

A sophisticated React/Redux e-commerce SPA featuring seamless page transitions powered by GSAP. It utilizes clip-path animations for cinematic reveals and the Draggable plugin for interactive product grids, creating a fluid, app-like shopping experience.

A powerful visual effect of a red liquid “flood” filling the screen, suitable for loading screens, game level transitions, or creative overlays.

An immersive, cinematic slider that feels like a high-budget interactive installation, thanks to its complex animations, custom cursor, and comprehensive input support.

A fully functional rating widget that responds to hover and click events, illuminating the appropriate number of stars and updating the digit on the right, creating a dynamic interface feel without a single line of JS.

A pure CSS pricing component that creates a dimensional ‘ribbon’ aesthetic solely through ::after pseudo-elements and clip-path geometry. The layout leverages CSS Custom Properties for distinct color themes and calc with negative margins to extend elements beyond the parent container, creating a folded paper effect without any JavaScript dependencies.

This interactive portfolio showcases a masonry-style layout built with two overlapping CSS Grids, where grid-row: span and grid-column: span create the complex pattern. The key interaction is a unique “spotlight” reveal effect on hover, powered by a JavaScript-controlled SVG <clipPath> that dynamically updates the position of a <circle> mask to follow the mouse.

This component provides a delightful user experience by replacing the standard “show/hide” password icon with animated Pac-Man characters. The entire interaction is driven by two GSAP timelines, which not only move the characters but also change the input’s background and letter spacing, creating a fully immersive and playful UI.

This cinematic slider interface leverages GSAP timelines and sophisticated clip-path polygon transformations to orchestrate fluid transitions between full-screen slides and an overlay navigation system.

This demo showcases a multi-ring clock with rotating elements where each date/time value is generated and positioned using trigonometry. A key feature is the dynamic localization of month and day names using the Intl.DateTimeFormat API and language selection via the native <dialog> element.

An interactive “spotlight” effect created with clip-path: circle(), whose position is controlled via CSS variables. JavaScript tracks the cursor and updates the variables inside a requestAnimationFrame loop for a smooth and performant animation.

The use of gradients to create a realistic metallic effect and highlights on the button. Various types of linear-gradient and radial-gradient are applied to create a multi-layered background, and clip-path precisely clips the shapes of the pseudo-elements.

Smooth visual representation of the slider track fill using the CSS clip-path property and the --slider-percentage variable. The tooltip showing the current value is animated with GSAP, including a slight rotation to simulate “wobbling” during drag.

An unconventional use of datalist to create a custom ruler scale under the slider, where tick marks are styled using box-shadow and linear-gradient, and their visibility is controlled by CSS variables within media queries.

This interactive pagination features a fluid numerical transition achieved solely through CSS clip-path animations, where JavaScript toggles the body class to trigger the complex morphing sequence on the SVG elements.

The entire scene is constructed from a combination of gradients (linear-gradient/radial-gradient) and precise element positioning using background-position.

Complex yet high-performance 3D rendering in the browser: the model is built on CSS Box Model Hacking principles, where each polygon is positioned in space using translate and rotate for continuous 360-degree animation.

A demonstration of creating perfectly equilateral CSS triangles using the native pow() and sqrt() mathematical functions inside calc(). This showcases how to achieve geometric precision without preprocessors, relying solely on modern CSS.

A pure CSS accordion based on native <details>/<summary> elements, where the standard marker is hidden, and a custom animated chevron arrow is created and controlled exclusively via clip-path: polygon() and the rotate property upon expansion.

A showcase of the creative application of clip-path to create an “unfolding” image effect on hover, where the interaction not only changes the shape but also uses z-index to elevate the element and overlap neighboring tiles.

A stylish, pure CSS solution for creating speech bubbles with custom tails using the :after pseudo-element and the advanced clip-path: polygon() property to give the content frame a unique, angled edge shape.

A full-screen, scroll-hijacked slider orchestrated by a single GSAP timeline, achieving a sophisticated transition effect by simultaneously animating clip-path on image layers and translating text elements.

This interactive animation, built with React and GSAP, lets the user “tear” a stylized seal. The complex effect is achieved by tracking cursor movement with Draggable.create() and then smoothly changing properties like clip-path and box-shadow to simulate the tear.

This demo showcases advanced CSS features like clip-path and shape-outside for creating non-rectangular layouts, while leveraging modern CSS units like clamp() and dvh for a fully responsive design across devices.

The key feature is the control of animation parameters via CSS variables, which allows for easy changes to the speed and intensity of the glitch. The animation itself is built on three layered elements, each with unique offsets, shadows, and clipping animations (@keyframes glitch-top/bottom).

Here is an advanced example of an interactive UI element built entirely with CSS. The demo is technically notable for its approach to visualizing activity: it uses pseudo-elements and CSS variables to create glow effects, scanning lines, and a “data stream” that activates on input focus.