CSS3 comes up and you can replicate fancy effects you thought you can only do in Photoshop. Now people create logos and icons within only lines of code and what’s more no images! Effects are stunning and unbelievably realistic. In this article, we have handpicked some awesome css3 experiments so far which will make you say wow.

Olympic Logo

Name: Doug Neiner
Purely css, ems based and dynamically scallable. It also requires a browser capable of rendering border-radius. For now that includes recent versions of Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer 9.

jQuery Logo

Name: Doug Neiner
We all know jQery. Probably most of us, favorite javascript framework. Logo rendered mainly using border-radius property.

jQuery UI Logo

Name: Doug Neiner
jQery UI icon. Not as popular as framework brother, but worth being interested in. Similairly, made using border-radius property.

Impressive CSS logo replications

Name: Justin Sepulveda
Nice piece of icon set. All made with pure css and use border-radius, gradient, transform properties. It’s nice to see people come up with such amazing replicas. Awesome!

Opera Logo

Name: David DeSandro
Nicely made Opera icon. Extensive usage of border-radius, gradient could provide this extensively awesome effect. Logo doesn’t look the same on all browsers, especially on IE.

iOS icons

Name: Louis Harboe
Great work. Advanced css3 involved.

Simple css icons

Name: Zander Martineau
I didn’t know making triangles out of css2 was possible, till this article research. Here you can find some pretty and simple stuff like rss icon, heart icon or triangle.

Pure CSS animated 3D Super Mario Icon

Name: Andreas Jacob
Made by with CSS3 & the CSS 4D Framework by Andreas Jacob. Animation work is decent but for now only works in Safari 5.

Some nice icon made with pure CSS

Name: Andrew Kelly
Gradients, Shadows and rounded borders used. Nice final effect.

Adobe Photoshop Logos in CSS3

Name: Radu Chelariu
Great use of gradients and amazing footer. No images used!

Ten amazing social media icons!

Name: Nicolas Gallagher
All examples use simple, semantic HTML. No empty elements, no unnecessary extra elements, no JavaScript, no images.

Peculiar CSS icon set

Name: Lucian Marin
Peculiar is icon package made only in CSS. It was created for sites and web applications that depend on fewer HTTP requests as possible or don’t need to use any image at all.

Twitter icon in only CSS3

Name: Giacomo Bartoli
Obviously used @font-face with little shadow and rounded borders.

Go Transit CSS Logo

Name: Collin Henderson
CSS only logo of Canadian Transporter. Simply done with use of border-radius.

Internet Explorer CSS icon

Name: Andreas Jacob
Best viewed with Firefox 3.6+ & Safari 5. Radial, linear gradients, shadows and lots of empty elements.

Nintendo icons

Name: Drew
Mario mushroom, the Triforce, a Pokéball, and Kirby made with pure css.

Back to the future CSS Logo

Name: Lucas Garron
This logo and the original one. Unbelievably alike. Best viewed in webkit browser.

Raindrop CSS Logo

Name: Sean Martell
Amazing replication of Mozilla’s project i like.

Bahamas CSS Logo

Name: ForestMist
Impressive replica made with use of border-radius.

Reddit CSS Alien

Name: Matthew James Taylor
Nice css logo made with use of “O O _ ( ) ( ) O O O O / – o O O O O O O O O • • ( ) ( )” and some font-styling.

Social Media Pure CSS icons

Name: insicdesigns
Just another social media icons with use of css3.

Bonus: iPhone in CSS3

Name: Jeff Batterton
Well, that’s not an icon, but work involved in this one is really insane. Extensive use of css3.

Bonus: Twitter Fail Whale

Name: Jeff Batterton
Well, that’s not an icon, neither logo. It’s really good illustration made only with css. No images whatsoever!

Bonus: LOST – Animated CSS3 Logo

Name: Marcos Esperon
This example animation plays nerdy title in the introduction of the series Lost (a tribute to its completion). Best viewed in webkit browser.

Final thoughts

There are many amazingly done css icons and logos. People achieved those effects using only lines of code. Sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. Well, this may not be what CSS is for, but it’s fun way to learn and play with it. So, learn css3, experiment for yourself and remember to check out The Ultimate Roundup of 55+ CSS3 Tutorials.