In Web Design and Development, like most fields, you have to evolve to keep up with the times. This is especially true with new features that get added to one of a designers most often used tools, like CSS. CSS3, the latest specification for CSS, has several new features designers can start taking advantage of right now.

The biggest and most important change in CSS3 is definitely the modularization of the specification approval process. What this means is that each section of CSS3 (borders, box shadow, images, etc) has its own module. That means that they can be approved individually, and developed separately.

This means we get changes faster, and when they come they are more relevant to what the community and browser developers have been asking for. It also means it’s easier for browser to be up to date on the new standard, because it’s received piecemeal, rather than all at once. This means less worrying about how your content looks across different browsers and platforms.

We all know a few in our field who are more like dinosaurs than designers. Don’t be a dinosaur, stuck using outdated techniques and boring design practices. Elevate your designs and take advantage of the latest technologies with techniques like:

Transitions

Long have designers struggled to use Adobe Flash and JavaScript to accomplish image transitions. No more. Gone are the days of ugly, often tacky Flash transitions and difficult to implement JS animations. Now, with CSS3 transitions, designers can use a clean, lightweight browser-side solution to implement their transitions, instead of a heavy server-side method. There are two key ways to do this. First, and most simply, you can use the  transition declaration and trigger mouse-based effects like hover or trigger the animation with a simple JS change. Alternatively you can use the  @keyframe rule to specify specific changes to the animation that don’t require user input. You can read more about CSS3 transitions here.

Gradients

Tired of mucking about in Photoshop, struggling to get the gradient for those buttons just right? So is everyone else. Thankfully now, you don’t have to! CSS gradients allow designers to create beautiful gradients that look excellent on any display. Best of all, it’s all in a nice, light-weight CSS file that’s supported by all browsers, and doesn’t require you to use heavy, resource taxing images (are you noticing a theme here?). Gradients have actually been around for a while now but only now are they available for use in every browser. Right now, radial and linear repeating and non-repeating gradients are available and more are likely to be on the way.

3D Transforms

Let’s be honest for a second here. We designers can be a very…showy group of people. Some might say we enjoy lording our abilities over designers less in the know than we are. Now, if this sounds like you, or if you just want to build a beautiful, eye-catching portfolio, CSS3 3D transforms can really help your work stand out. Never ever underestimate the value of a little flash (pun shamelessly intended) in your web page design, especially when you want to stand out from a veritable sea of other designers.

Border Radius

Rounded corners look great. Rounded corners look natural. Rounded corners have historically been a pain in the ass to code, and using images can quickly increase file sizes. Now your buttons can have natural, rounded edges without excessive code! Use CSS3’s new  border-radius property to create simple rounded edges that don’t require excess fiddling with  height and  widthproperties, and don’t break when you tweak content or location. If you want an example, try these code snippets (courtesy of webreference.com ) on a web page of your own.

CSS:

.box {
  border: 2px solid orange;
  border-radius : 25px;
  width: 100px;
  padding: 10px;
  text-align:center;
}

#css3