Striking the right balance can be tough. We don’t want cool mama bear’s porridge or hot papa’s bear porridge, but something right in the middle, like baby bear’s porridge.
For decades, Google has been the cornerstone of how we navigate the internet. Whether you’re searching for the best pizza in town or troubleshooting a tech issue, Google has been the go-to solution for nearly everyone.
But a recent WallStreet Journal article reveals a troubling trend for the search giant: younger audiences, particularly Gen Z, are skipping Google entirely in favor of platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
For web designers, this shift has profound implications. It challenges how we think about search behavior, content presentation, and user expectations in an evolving digital landscape.
A Generational Shift in Search Behavior
For younger internet users, the way they interact with the digital world is fundamentally different from the habits of older generations.
Instead of typing queries into a search bar, many Gen Z users are turning to platforms where answers are integrated into visual and social content.
TikTok, for instance, has become a surprising hub for finding everything from restaurant recommendations to life hacks, with its algorithm-driven feed offering highly curated and engaging results. Similarly, Instagram’s visually driven content appeals to those seeking inspiration, advice, or entertainment.
This shift in behavior undermines Google’s traditional search model. Younger users expect immediate, personalized results often embedded in a visual and social context, whereas Google’s search experience—dominated by text-heavy links—feels increasingly outdated to this demographic.
Implications for Google’s Core Business
The decline in younger users’ reliance on Google doesn’t just impact search; it threatens the company’s core business model. Google Search drives a significant portion of the company’s revenue through advertising.
If younger audiences continue to migrate to other platforms, advertisers may follow, allocating their budgets to social media channels that better capture this coveted demographic.
This potential erosion of Google’s dominance in search has led the company to introduce new features, such as integrating generative AI into search results to offer more conversational and contextually rich answers. However, whether these adaptations will resonate with younger users remains to be seen.
Regulatory Pressures Add to the Strain
As if the challenge of shifting user behavior weren’t enough, Google is also navigating intense regulatory scrutiny. On November 20, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice filed antitrust actions against the company, targeting its alleged monopolistic practices.
These lawsuits could result in a significant restructuring of Google’s operations, further complicating its ability to innovate and compete effectively.
The legal battle underscores broader concerns about Big Tech’s outsized influence on markets and consumer choice.
For Google, the stakes are particularly high as its competitors—ranging from Meta to Amazon—are equally eager to claim a larger slice of the digital advertising and AI-driven services markets.
Adapting for the Future
To remain relevant in the face of these challenges, Google will need to embrace more aggressive innovation.
This might involve further integrating AI capabilities, enhancing its mobile experience, or even partnering with emerging platforms to recapture younger audiences. Additionally, Google may need to rethink its approach to advertising, ensuring its solutions remain attractive to brands seeking to engage with Gen Z.
The road ahead for Google is not without precedent. Microsoft faced a similar existential crisis in the early 2000s, when it transitioned from a software-centric company to a cloud powerhouse.
Whether Google can execute a comparable reinvention will determine its ability to stay at the forefront of the tech industry.
What This Means for Web Designers
If Google is becoming “old school,” how should web designers adapt? Here are a few takeaways:
1. Design for Visual Engagement
Web design needs to embrace more visual storytelling. Think beyond stock photos and static banners—users are drawn to short videos, animations, and interactive elements. If your site can mimic the engaging, visual-first approach of TikTok or Instagram, you’re more likely to keep users’ attention.
2. Prioritize Mobile UX
Younger users are almost exclusively mobile-first. A clunky desktop-first design isn’t just inconvenient; it’s irrelevant to how they browse. Ensure your designs are responsive, load quickly, and provide a seamless experience on smaller screens.
3. Rethink Search Interfaces
Search bars remain critical, but their presentation and functionality need an upgrade. Incorporate features like voice search, contextual suggestions, and conversational AI (similar to Google’s new generative AI initiatives). Users should feel like they’re interacting with a helpful guide, not just typing into a void.
4. Optimize for Social Platforms
It’s no longer enough to focus solely on optimizing for Google. Younger users are discovering content through TikTok, Instagram, and even Pinterest.
Designers and content creators need to think about how their work translates to these platforms—whether it’s a catchy video, a swipeable carousel, or a well-designed social ad.
For web designers, this means two things: adapting our designs to fit these platforms and reconsidering how we present information. A static website with dense blocks of text simply won’t cut it anymore.
Instead, we need to focus on creating designs that are fluid, interactive, and optimized for a social-first audience. Whether it’s integrating AI-powered personalization or adopting visual-first layouts, the goal is to stay relevant in an increasingly fragmented digital ecosystem.
Conclusion
The shift in digital habits among younger users highlights the ephemeral nature of tech dominance. What was once indispensable to one generation may become irrelevant to the next.
For Google, this reality represents both a challenge and an opportunity: a chance to evolve and redefine what search means in an age of social media and generative AI.
As regulatory battles loom and new competitors emerge, one thing is clear: the future of search—and Google itself—is being rewritten.
So, is Googling really for old people? Maybe. But if we embrace these changes in user behavior, we can design for the future—and stay ahead of the curve.
If you’ve ever owned an IKEA FRAKTA bag (yes, that iconic blue wonder that seems capable of holding your entire life), then you’ll want to check out IKEA’s latest design-inspired pop-up: the ‘Hus of FRAKTA.’
Located on London’s bustling Oxford Street, this pop-up isn’t just a retail space—it’s a celebration of the design innovation and cultural significance behind one of the most recognizable items in IKEA’s catalog.
A Design Icon Reimagined
Let’s talk about the FRAKTA bag. It’s not just a bag—it’s a symbol of IKEA’s democratic design ethos: practical, affordable, and surprisingly stylish.
With its bold blue color, durable polypropylene material, and minimalistic yet functional structure, the FRAKTA bag has been a staple for over 30 years.
It’s the ultimate in “form meets function,” designed to adapt to countless uses, from carrying groceries to serving as a laundry basket or even a plant protector (seriously, people have gotten creative!).
The ‘Hus of FRAKTA’ takes this humble design marvel and elevates it into an experience. Every corner of the pop-up is thoughtfully curated to highlight how a simple design object can inspire creativity and utility in everyday life.
Design Features to Explore at the Pop-Up
1. The Atelier: Customization Meets Craft
At the heart of the pop-up is The Atelier, a personalization station where visitors can transform their FRAKTA bags into unique design pieces.
The beauty of the FRAKTA lies in its simplicity, and this is a perfect blank canvas for creative expression. Think screen prints, patches, and embroidery—elements that allow you to make this everyday object truly your own. It’s design democratization at its finest: a high-end custom experience for just £3 (or free if you’re an IKEA Family member).
2. The FRAKTA Walk: Immersive Design Storytelling
Ever wondered what it would feel like to walk inside a FRAKTA bag? The pop-up features an immersive walkway inspired by the bag’s design. It’s playful, bold, and a bit surreal—an ode to the product’s larger-than-life status in the world of functional design.
3. Curated Collection: A Tribute to IKEA’s Best Designs
The pop-up also showcases a curated collection of IKEA products, with a focus on items that reflect FRAKTA’s bold blue aesthetic.
From the sleek RÄFFELBJÖRK vase to the versatile DOMSTEN stool, this collection highlights IKEA’s ability to balance form, function, and affordability. It’s a reminder that great design doesn’t have to come with a hefty price tag.
Why It Works: The Genius of Simple Design
The success of the FRAKTA bag, and by extension the ‘Hus of FRAKTA’ pop-up, lies in the principles of democratic design.
At IKEA, every product is created with five pillars in mind: form, function, quality, sustainability, and affordability. The FRAKTA embodies all of these, which is why it’s such an enduring classic.
By focusing on this bag, the pop-up underscores the idea that even the simplest designs can have a profound impact. It’s a celebration of everyday objects that make life easier and better—and isn’t that what good design is all about?
A Fusion of Fashion and Function
What makes the ‘Hus of FRAKTA’ particularly exciting is how it bridges the gap between fashion and functionality.
The FRAKTA bag has already inspired countless memes, DIY hacks, and even high-fashion knockoffs (remember Balenciaga’s expensive tribute?).
By leaning into this cultural phenomenon, IKEA has created a space that’s as much about lifestyle and creativity as it is about retail.
Final Thoughts
If you’re in London, the ‘Hus of FRAKTA’ is a must-visit for anyone who loves design. It’s playful, inspiring, and a testament to the power of thoughtful design in everyday life.
And if you leave with a personalized FRAKTA bag, even better—it’s not just a shopping tote; it’s a piece of design history.
For a multistep form, planning involves structuring questions logically across steps, grouping similar questions, and minimizing the number of steps and the amount of required information for each step. Whatever makes each step focused and manageable is what should be aimed for.
In this tutorial, we will create a multistep form for a job application. Here are the details we are going to be requesting from the applicant at each step:
Personal Information Collects applicant’s name, email, and phone number.
Work Experience Collects the applicant’s most recent company, job title, and years of experience.
Skills & Qualifications The applicant lists their skills and selects their highest degree.
Review & Submit This step is not going to collect any information. Instead, it provides an opportunity for the applicant to go back and review the information entered in the previous steps of the form before submitting it.
You can think of structuring these questions as a digital way of getting to know somebody. You can’t meet someone for the first time and ask them about their work experience without first asking for their name.
Based on the steps we have above, this is what the body of our HTML with our form should look like. First, the main element:
<form id="jobApplicationForm">
<!-- Step 1: Personal Information -->
<!-- Step 2: Work Experience -->
<!-- Step 3: Skills & Qualifications -->
<!-- Step 4: Review & Submit -->
</form>
Step 1 is for filling in personal information, like the applicant’s name, email address, and phone number:
Once the applicant completes the first step, we’ll navigate them to Step 2, focusing on their work experience so that we can collect information like their most recent company, job title, and years of experience. We’ll tack on a new
The Fermi Paradox is a contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, such as in the Drake equation, and lack of any evidence for such civilizations.
– There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are similar to the Sun including many billions of years older than Earth. – With high probability, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets, and if the Earth is typical, some might develop intelligent life. – Some of these civilizations might develop interstellar travel, a step the Earth is investigating now. – Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way galaxy could be completely traversed in about a million years.
According to this line of thinking, the Earth should have already been visited by extraterrestrial aliens. In an informal conversation, Fermi noted no convincing evidence of this, nor any signs of alien intelligence anywhere in the observable universe, leading him to ask, “Where is everybody?”
Many have argued that the absence of time travelers from the future demonstrates that such technology will never be developed, suggesting that it is impossible. This is analogous to the Fermi paradox related to the absence of evidence of extraterrestrial life. As the absence of extraterrestrial visitors does not categorically prove they do not exist, so the absence of time travelers fails to prove time travel is physically impossible; it might be that time travel is physically possible but is never developed or is cautiously used. Carl Sagan once suggested the possibility that time travelers could be here but are disguising their existence or are not recognized as time travelers.
It seems, to me at least, clear evidence that time travel is not possible, given the enormous amount of time behind us. Something, somewhere, would certainly have invented it by now… right?
The Great Filter theory says that at some point from pre-life to Type III intelligence, there’s a wall that all or nearly all attempts at life hit. There’s some stage in that long evolutionary process that is extremely unlikely or impossible for life to get beyond. That stage is The Great Filter.
We are not a rare form of life, but near the first to evolve
Almost no life makes it to this point
Those are three Great Filter possibilities, but the question remains: why are we so alone in the observable universe? I grant you that what we can observe is appallingly tiny given the unimaginable scale of the universe, so “what we can observe” may not be enough by many orders of magnitude.
I encourage you to read the entire article, it’s full of great ideas explained well, including many other Great Filter possibilites. But Mostly I want to share my personal theory of why we haven’t encountered alien life by now. Like computers themselves, things don’t get larger. They get smaller. And faster. And so does intelligent life.
Why build planet-size anything when the real action is in the small things? Small spaces, small units of time, everything gets smaller.
Large is inefficient and unnecessary. Look at the history of computers: from giant to tiny and tinier. From slow to fast and faster. Personally, I have a feeling really advanced life eventually does away with all physical stuff that slows you down as soon as they can, and enters the infinite spaces between:
This is, of course, a variant on the Fermi paradox: We don’t see clues to widespread, large-scale engineering, and consequently we must conclude that we’re alone. But the possibly flawed assumption here is when we say that highly visible construction projects are an inevitable outcome of intelligence. It could be that it’s the engineering of the small, rather than the large, that is inevitable. This follows from the laws of inertia (smaller machines are faster, and require less energy to function) as well as the speed of light (small computers have faster internal communication). It may be – and this is, of course, speculation – that advanced societies are building small technology and have little incentive or need to rearrange the stars in their neighborhoods, for instance. They may prefer to build nanobots instead.
It’s that time of year again—Spotify Wrapped season is just around the corner, and this year, the streaming giant has found a new way to keep us guessing.
Instead of the usual hints, Spotify is teasing 2024 Wrapped with mysterious, cryptic logos, and the internet is buzzing with theories.
What’s Spotify Wrapped Again?
If you’ve somehow missed the Wrapped craze, here’s a quick recap: every December, Spotify drops a personalized, colorful snapshot of your music habits from the year. It tells you everything from your most-played songs and artists to the oddest hours you were up listening to your guilty pleasure tracks.
It’s a total vibe—and a major flex when you post your stats on Instagram or TikTok.
Wrapped isn’t just fun; it’s a whole cultural moment. Everyone’s sharing their playlists, tagging friends, and debating their “Top Artist” results. And now, Spotify’s teasing its 2024 edition in the most cryptic way possible.
What’s Up with These Logos?
Instead of a straightforward teaser, Spotify has dropped these wild logo designs that feel like a puzzle waiting to be cracked. They’re bold, colorful, and kind of trippy—think warped shapes, motion-inspired graphics, and colors that pop like your favorite album cover.
So, what’s the deal? Are these logos hinting at new Wrapped features? Maybe we’ll get more dynamic visuals or an entirely new way to interact with our year-end stats. Whatever it is, people are losing it trying to figure it out.
Fans Are ALL In
Naturally, the internet is doing what it does best—overanalyzing everything. Some think Spotify is gearing up to introduce community stats, like regional trends or playlists that show what your city’s been vibing to.
Others are hoping for AI-generated insights (think: “What song defines your 2024 energy?”). And there’s speculation about AR or 3D Wrapped experiences because those logos definitely look futuristic.
On TikTok, users are stitching videos with their predictions, while on Twitter, the theories are flying. And Reddit? Let’s just say the rabbit hole of Wrapped conspiracies runs deep.
Why This Works
Honestly, Spotify knows exactly what it’s doing. These cryptic teasers are brilliant marketing. They’ve turned a yearly recap into an event—and now, the mystery has everyone hyped. Instead of just waiting around for Wrapped, people are talking about it, guessing about it, and hyping it up even more.
This playful, design-forward approach is peak Spotify: it’s creative, engaging, and just cryptic enough to keep us on edge.
Let’s be real—we won’t know for sure until Spotify officially drops Wrapped, but the teaser logos definitely suggest some exciting updates. Whether it’s next-level visuals, interactive features, or entirely new ways to relive your year in music, one thing’s for sure: Wrapped 2024 is going to hit differently.
In the meantime, why not revisit your favorite songs and playlists from this year? Who knows—your 3 a.m. summer anthem might just become your top track.
Keep your eyes on Spotify’s socials, and get ready to wrap up 2024 in style!
Welcome to “Anchor Positioning 101” where we will be exploring this interesting new CSS feature. Our textbook for this class will be the extensive “Anchor Positioning Guide” that Juan Diego Rodriguez published here on CSS-Tricks.
I’m excited for this one. Some of you may remember when CSS-Tricks released the “Flexbox Layout Guide” or the “Grid Layout Guide” — I certainly do and still have them both bookmarked! I spend a lot of time flipping between tabs to make sure I have the right syntax in my “experimental” CodePens.
I’ve been experimenting with CSS anchor positioning like the “good old days” since Juan published his guide, so I figured it’d be fun to share some of the excitement, learn a bit, experiment, and of course: build stuff!
CSS Anchor Positioning introduction
Anchor positioning lets us attach — or “anchor” — one element to one or more other elements. More than that, it allows us to define how a “target” element (that’s what we call the element we’re attaching to an anchor element) is positioned next to the anchor-positioned element, including fallback positioning in the form of a new @position-try at-rule.
The most hand-wavy way to explain the benefits of anchor positioning is to think of it as a powerful enhancement to position: absolute; as it helps absolutely-positioned elements do what you expect. Don’t worry, we’ll see how this works as we go.
Anchor positioning is currently a W3C draft spec, so you know it’s fresh. It’s marked as “limited availability” in Baseline which at the time of writing means it is limited to Chromium-based browsers (versions 125+). That said, the considerate folks over at Oddbird have a polyfill available that’ll help out other browsers until they ship support.
This browser support data is from Caniuse, which has more detail. A number indicates that browser supports the feature at that version and up.
Desktop
Chrome
Firefox
IE
Edge
Safari
125
No
No
125
No
Mobile / Tablet
Android Chrome
Android Firefox
Android
iOS Safari
131
No
131
No
Oddbird contributes polyfills for many new CSS features and you (yes, you!) can support their work on Github or Open Collective!
Tab Atkins-Bittner, contributing author to the W3C draft spec on anchor positioning, spoke on the topic at CSS Day 2024. The full conference talk is available on YouTube:
And finally, in the tradition of “making fun games to learn CSS,” Thomas Park released Anchoreum (a “Flexbox Froggy“-type game) to learn about CSS anchor positioning. Highly recommend checking this out to get the hang of the position-area property!
The homework
OK, now that we’re caught up on what CSS anchor positioning is and the excitement surrounding it, let’s talk about what it does. Tethering an element to another element? That has a lot of potential. Quite a few instances I can remember where I’ve had to fight with absolute positioning and z-index in order to get something positioned just right.
Let’s take a quick look at the basic syntax. First, we need two elements, an anchor-positioned element and the target element that will be tethered to it.
<!-- Anchor element -->
<div id="anchor">
Anchor
</div>
<!-- Target element -->
<div id="target">
Target
</div>
We set an element as an anchor-positioned element by providing it with an anchor-name. This is a unique name of our choosing, however it needs the double-dash prefix, like CSS custom properties.
#anchor {
anchor-name: --anchor;
}
As for our target element, we’ll need to set position: absolute; on it as well as tell the element what anchor to tether to. We do that with a new CSS property, position-anchor using a value that matches the anchor-name of our anchor-positioned element.
May not look like it yet, but now our two elements are attached. We can set the actual positioning on the target element by providing a position-area. To position our target element, position-area creates an invisible 3×3 grid over the anchor-positioned element. Using positioning keywords, we can designate where the target element appears near the anchor-positioned element.
#target {
position: absolute;
position-anchor: --anchor;
position-area: top center;
}
Now we see that our target element is anchored to the top-center of our anchor-positioned element!
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Anchoring pseudo-elements
While playing with anchor positioning, I noticed you can anchor pseudo-elements, just the same as any other element.
CSS anchor functions are an alternate way to position target elements based on the computed values of the anchor-positioned element itself. Here we are setting the target element’s top property value to match the anchor-positioned element’s bottom value. Similarly, we can set the target’s left property value to match the anchor-positioned element’s left value.
Hovering over the container element swaps the position-anchor from --anchor-one to --anchor-two.
We are also able to set a transition as we position the target using top and left, which makes it swap smoothly between anchors.
Extra experimental
Along with being the first to release CSS anchor-positioning, the Chrome dev team recently released new pseudo-selectors related to the
and elements. The ::details-content pseudo-selector allows you to style the “hidden” part of the element.
With this information, I thought: “can I anchor it?” and sure enough, you can!
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Again, this is definitely not ready for prime-time, but it’s always fun to experiment!
Practical examinations
Let’s take this a bit further and tackle more practical challenges using CSS anchor positioning. Please keep in mind that all these examples are Chrome-only at the time of writing!
Tooltips
One of the most straightforward use cases for CSS anchor positioning is possibly a tooltip. Makes a lot of sense: hover over an icon and a label floats nearby to explain what the icon does. I didn’t quite want to make yet another tutorial on how to make a tooltip and luckily for me, Zell Liew recently wrote an article on tooltip best practices, so we can focus purely on anchor positioning and refer to Zell’s work for the semantics.
The HTML is structured in a way where the tooltip element is a sibling of our anchor-positioned , notice how it has the [aria-labelledby] attribute set to match the tooltip’s [id]. The tooltip itself is a generic
, semantically enhanced to become a tooltip with the [role="tooltip"] attribute. We can also use [role="tooltip"] as a semantic selector to add common styles to tooltips, including the tooltip’s positioning relative to its anchor.
First, let’s turn our button into an anchored element by giving it an anchor-name. Next, we can set the target element’s position-anchor to match the anchor-name of the anchored element. By default, we can set the tooltip’s visibility to hidden, then using CSS sibling selectors, if the target element receives hover or focus-visible, we can then swap the visibility to visible.
/* Anchor-positioned Element */
#inbox-tool {
anchor-name: --inbox-tool;
}
/* Target element */
[role="tooltip"]#inbox-label {
position-anchor: --inbox-tool
}
/* Target positioning */
[role="tooltip"] {
position: absolute;
position-area: end center;
/* Hidden by default */
visibility: hidden;
}
/* Visible when tool is hovered or receives focus */
.tool:hover + [role="tooltip"],
.tool:focus-visible + [role="tooltip"] {
visibility: visible;
}
Ta-da! Here we have a working, CSS anchor-positioned tooltip!
As users of touch devices aren’t able to hover over elements, you may want to explore toggletips instead!
Floating disclosures
Disclosures are another common component pattern that might be a perfect use case for anchor positioning. Disclosures are typically a component where interacting with a toggle will open and close a corresponding element. Think of the good ol’ /
HTML element duo, for example.
Currently, if you are looking to create a disclosure-like component which floats over other portions of your user interface, you might be in for some JavaScript, absolute positioning, and z-index related troubles. Soon enough though, we’ll be able to combine CSS anchor positioning with another newer platform feature [popover] to create some incredibly straightforward (and semantically accurate) floating disclosure elements.
The Popover API provides a non-modal way to elevate elements to the top-layer, while also baking in some great functionality, such as light dismissals.
, to be our popover element by adding the [popover] attribute.
To control the popover, let’s add the attribute [popoveraction="toggle"] to enable the button as a toggle, and point the [popovertarget] attribute to the [id] of our target element.
No JavaScript is necessary, and now we have a toggle-able [popover] disclosure element! The problem is that it’s still not tethered to the anchor-positioned element, let’s fix that in our CSS.
First, as this is a popover, let’s add a small bit of styling to remove the intrinsic margin popovers receive by default from browsers.
ul[popover] {
margin: 0;
}
Let’s turn our button into an anchor-positioned element by providing it with an anchor-name:
As for our target element, we can attach it to the anchor-positioned element by setting its position to absolute and the position-anchor to our anchor-positioned element’s anchor-name:
We can also adjust the target’s positioning near the anchor-positioned element with the position-area property, similar to what we did with our tooltip.
You may notice another CSS anchor function in here, anchor-size()! We can set the target’s width to match the width of the anchor-positioned element by using anchor-size(width).
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There is one more neat thing we can apply here, fallback positioning! Let’s consider that maybe this dropdown menu might sometimes be located at the bottom of the viewport, either from scrolling or some other reason. We don’t really want it to overflow or cause any extra scrolling, but instead, swap to an alternate location that is visible to the user.
Anchor positioning makes this possible with the postion-try-fallbacks property, a way to provide an alternate location for the target element to display near an anchor-positioned element.
To keep things simple for our demo, we can add the opposite value of the value of the postion-area property: top.
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Shopping cart component
We know how to make a tooltip and a disclosure element, now let’s build upon what we’ve learned so far and create a neat, interactive shopping cart component.
Let’s think about how we want to mark this up. First, we’ll need a button with a shopping cart icon:
We can already reuse what we learned with our tooltip styles to provide a functioning label for this toggle. Let’s add the class .tool to the button, then include a tooltip as our label.
We’ll need to specify our is an anchor-positioned element in CSS with an anchor-name, which we can also set as the tooltip’s position-anchor value to match.
Now we should have a nice-looking tooltip labeling our shopping cart button!
But wait, we want this thing to do more than that! Let’s turn it into a disclosure component that reveals a list of items inside the user’s cart. As we are looking to have a floating user-interface with a few actions included, we should consider a element. However, we don’t necessarily want to be blocking background content, so we can opt for a non-modal dialog using the[popover] attribute again!
To control the popover, we’ve added [popovertarget="shopping-cart"] and [popoveraction="toggle"] to our anchor-positioned element and included a second button within the that can also be used to close the dialog with [popoveraction="close"].
To anchor the shopping cart to the toggle, we can set position-anchor and position-area:
#shopping-cart {
position-anchor: --shopping-cart;
position-area: end center;
}
At this point, we should take a moment to realize that we have tethered two elements to the same anchor!
We won’t stop there, though. There is one more enhancement we can make to really show how helpful anchor positioning can be: Let’s add a notification badge to the element to describe how many items are inside the cart.
Let’s place the badge inside of our anchor-positioned element this time.
Now the accessible name of our anchor-positioned element will be read as Shopping Cart (1 item in cart), which helps provide context to assistive technologies like screen readers.
Let’s tether this notification badge to the same anchor as our tooltip and shopping cart , we can do this by setting the position-anchor property of the badge to --shopping-cart-toggle:
Let’s look at positioning. We don’t want it below or next to the anchor, we want it overlapping, so we can use CSS anchor functions to position it based on the anchor-positioned element’s dimensions.
Here we are setting the bottom and left of the target element to match the anchor’s center. This places it in the upper-right corner of the SVG icon!
Folks, this means we have three elements anchored now. Isn’t that fantastic?
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Combining things
To put these anchor-positioned elements into perspective, I’ve combined all the techniques we’ve learned so far into a more familiar setting:
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Disclosure components, dropdown menus, tooltips (and toggletips!), as well as notification badges all made much simpler using CSS anchor positioning!
Final project
As a final project for myself (and to bring this whole thing around full-circle), I decided to try to build a CSS anchor-positioned-based onboarding tool. I’ve previously attempted to build a tool like this at work, which I called “HandHoldJS” and it… well, it didn’t go so great. I managed to have a lot of the core functionality working using JavaScript, but it meant keeping track of quite a lot of positions and lots of weird things kept happening!
Let’s see if we can do better with CSS anchor positioning.
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Feel free to check out the code on CodePen! I went down quite a rabbit hole on this one, so I’ll provide a bit of a high-level overview here.
is a native custom element that works entirely in the light DOM. It sort of falls into the category of an HTML web component, as it is mostly based on enabling its inner HTML. You can specify tour stops to any element on the page by adding [data-tour-stop] attributes with values in the order you want the tour to occur.
Inside the element contains a to start the tour, a element to contain the tour information,
elements to separate content between tour stops, a fieldset[data-handhold-navigation] element which holds navigation radio buttons, as well as another to end the tour.
Each
element corresponds to a tour stop with a matching [data-handhold-content] attribute applied. Using JavaScript, dynamically updates tour stops to be anchor-positioned elements, which the can attach itself (there is a sneaky pseudo-element attached to the anchor to highlight the tour stop element!).
Although the element is attached via CSS anchor positioning, it also moves within the DOM to appear next to the anchor-position element in the accessibility tree. The (well-meaning) intention here is to help provide more context to those who may be navigating via assistive devices by figuring out which element the dialog is referring to. Believe me, though, this thing is far from perfect as an accessible user experience.
Also, since the moves throughout the DOM, unfortunately, a simple CSS transition would not suffice. Another modern browser feature to the rescue yet again, as we can pass a DOM manipulation function into a View Transition, making the transitions feel smoother!
There is still quite a lot to test with this, so I would not recommend using in a production setting. If for no other reason than browser support is quite limited at the moment!
This is just an experiment to see what I could cook up using CSS anchor positioning, I’m excited for the potential!
Class dismissed!
After seeing what CSS anchor positioning is capable of, I have suspicions that it may change a lot of the ways we write CSS, similar to the introduction of flexbox or grid.
I’m excited to see what other user interface patterns can be accomplished with anchor positioning, and I’m even more excited to see what the community will do with it once it’s more broadly available!
Welcome to our monthly roundup of the best new fonts we’ve found online in the previous four weeks.
November’s edition is particularly strong for script-inspired sans, display faces with motion and energy, and a charming blackletter font. Enjoy!
Formiga
Formiga is a versatile, humanist display typeface designed for attention-grabbing editorials. It has a clear, confident, and fun style, making it perfect for B2C branding projects. There are seven weights (from light to black) with a ton of OpenType features.
Geoscript
GeoScript is a lovely chunky brush script with three weights: Light, Medium, and Bold. It effortlessly combines handwritten and geometric elements making it perfect for a corporate logo with a bit more personality.
Anathera
Anathera is a bold, minimalist typeface with a distinctive pixelation of its diagonal strokes. At large sizes the pixelated details feel disruptive, and at small sizes they create a sense of motion in the text. It’s a great choice for any project that needs to stand out.
Morph
Morph is a versatile display type system built from several different stencil and doubleline styles. It’s a clean modern family with enough variety to create visually interesting word shapes. It’s a great choice for logos, editorial, signage, and poster designs.
Brisca Miera
Brisca Miera is a graceful serif, with swashes and alternate characters to add variety and a sense of hand-crafted typography. It’s an excellent option any time you need a font for a sophisticated design.
Dorat
Dorat is an extremely modern blackletter font. The style is vastly under-used — thanks to some unhappy associations — and this font provides the opportunity to lean into a visually strong style while remaining distinctly contemporary.
Mars
Mars is a carefully drawn humanist sans, offering a more interesting corporate face than fonts like Helvetica. It features four different weights: Condensed, Standard, SemiCondensed, and Extended; providing tremendous versatility. It’s a good choice for a company looking for an original voice in its communications.
Milling
Milling was designed after research into the shapes that lend themselves to CNC machining. There are three styles: Simplex, Duplex, and Triplex. It’s a practical font for anyone machining lettering, but it’s also an excellent font for conveying industrial production.
Wild Lines
Wild Lines is a straight, urban graffiti font that captures the raw energy and edginess of street culture. Its clean, linear style adds structure while preserving graffiti’s rebellious feel. Ideal for projects needing an urban, bold aesthetic, it brings a fresh, city-inspired vibe to designs.
LiebeHeide Fineliner
LiebeHeide Fineliner is a friendly script font with clean lines and smooth curves. Featuring plenty of ligatures and alternatives, it ensures natural, organic text flow and unique designs. It adds a personal touch to any project.
Arkbro
Arkbro is a variable typeface inspired by Ellen Arkbro’s track Mountain of Air, reflecting geometric principles and spatial harmony. Featuring extreme weight contrasts, it’s ideal for playful, animated displays. It’s an excellent choice for designs relating to music.
Hentak
Hentak is a script font with a flowing, handwritten style and a vintage feel. Featuring dramatic curves and ornamental details, it combines modern and classic calligraphic qualities.
Formale Grotesque
Formale Grotesque is a sans-serif typeface inspired by a 1930s alphabet board, blending geometric and dynamic forms with low stroke contrast. Its alternates shift from grotesque to humanist styles, adding versatility and depth.
Gonzaga
Gonzaga is a vibrant modern slab serif with contemporary lines and playful rhythms. It has an energy that makes it perfect for logos, posters, and hero text on the web.
VFU
VFU (Visionary Font Ultra) is a humble sans with flared strokes that lean in the direction of serifs. It comes with nine weights with matching italics, and a display version.
In the early 2000s, the internet was undergoing a massive transformation. Websites were no longer static, text-heavy pages but were becoming immersive digital experiences.
At the forefront of this revolution stood 2Advanced Studios, a name synonymous with cutting-edge web design and innovation. Their website, 2Advanced.com, became an iconic benchmark in the history of the internet, inspiring countless designers and developers.
2Advanced Studios, have reimagined their iconic 2001 V3 website for 2024. This modern iteration is built entirely using Rive and React JS, showcasing their commitment to blending classic aesthetics with contemporary web technologies.
The updated site maintains the futuristic design elements that originally set 2Advanced apart, now enhanced with responsive layouts and interactive animations. This revival not only pays homage to their influential past but also demonstrates their adaptability and continued innovation in the evolving digital landscape.
For a visual journey through their design evolution, you can explore their official YouTube channel, which features content highlighting their creative milestones, or check their X account for the latest news.
The Rise of 2Advanced Studios
Founded in 1999 by Eric Jordan, 2Advanced Studios carved a niche for itself by creating visually stunning and highly interactive websites. At a time when Flash was the dominant technology for creating dynamic online experiences, 2Advanced leveraged its full potential. Their designs were not just websites; they were art.
The company’s flagship website, 2Advanced.com, was a masterpiece of futuristic aesthetics. With themes that drew heavily from cyberpunk and sci-fi inspirations, the site featured sleek metallic textures, neon-lit interfaces, and fluid animations. The navigation was seamless yet experimental, challenging users to explore its digital landscape.
Design That Defined an Era
The site’s most famous iterations—such as “Expedition,” “Prophecy,” and “V5 Ascension”—demonstrated 2Advanced’s mastery of Flash. Each redesign brought a new visual theme that captured the zeitgeist of the web design community. The vibrant colors, cinematic transitions, and immersive soundscapes were unparalleled.
2Advanced wasn’t just about aesthetics. Their work emphasized usability and storytelling, blending form and function to create experiences that were intuitive despite their visual complexity. For many, visiting 2Advanced.com wasn’t just about browsing—it was an event.
Impact on the Web Design Community
2Advanced.com became a beacon of inspiration for web designers and developers worldwide. It showcased what was possible with emerging web technologies and pushed the boundaries of creativity. Forums and design communities buzzed with admiration and analysis of its every iteration. Tutorials and blogs dissected the techniques behind its magic, attempting to emulate its style.
The studio’s influence extended beyond its own website. Clients ranged from Fortune 500 companies to major entertainment brands, all seeking 2Advanced’s ability to merge futuristic visuals with cutting-edge interactivity.
The Downfall of Flash and 2Advanced’s Legacy
As the web evolved, so did its technologies. The rise of mobile devices and the growing importance of responsive design marked the decline of Flash. By the late 2000s, HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript had become the new standards for creating dynamic web content. These changes rendered Flash-based designs obsolete, and 2Advanced Studios eventually shuttered its operations in the early 2010s.
Yet, the legacy of 2Advanced.com lives on. It remains a cultural touchstone in the history of web design, a reminder of a time when creativity reigned supreme. Its influence can still be seen in modern designs that prioritize user engagement and visual storytelling.
Why It Still Matters
In today’s world of minimalist and utilitarian design, revisiting 2Advanced.com feels like stepping into a time capsule. It reminds us of the boundless enthusiasm and optimism of the early internet era—a time when designers dared to dream big and technology felt like magic.
For those who lived through the golden age of Flash, 2Advanced.com was more than just a website; it was a movement. And for those discovering it for the first time, it stands as a testament to what’s possible when creativity and technology collide.
The spirit of 2Advanced endures, inspiring new generations of designers to push boundaries and create experiences that captivate and inspire.
