Oct 20
How to: CSS Large Background
Since I posted the huge collection of Large Background Websites, I received several email requests on how to make a large background site with CSS. So, I thought it would be a good idea to share my techniques on designing large background websites. In this tutorial, I will provide various CSS examples on how you can create a large background site using either a single or double images.
Common Mistake: Background Gets Cropped (see demo)
Take a look at the demo file, it looks fine under 1280px. But if you have a high resolution display, you will see the background gets cut off on the sides.
Example #1: Single Image (see demo)
A quick solution to fix the problem mentioned earlier: make the edge of the image the same color as the BODY background color. Here, I’m going to use Web Designer Wall as an example. Take a look at the image below and notice the edge is a solid color?
CSS Part
The CSS part is very simple. Specify the background image (position it center, top) for the BODY element.
Here is the CSS code:
body {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
background: #f8f7e5 url(wdw-bg.jpg) no-repeat center top;
width: 100%;
display: table;
}
Notice there are two extra lines in the BODY selector. That is to prevent the background image from shifting when you resize the browser smaller than the content width (it happens in Firefox).
Example #2: Double Images (see demo)
For this example, I’m going to use the job board design, Design Jobs on the Wall. I have a cork board pattern repeating in the BODY tag and a wrapper background in the center.
The trick here is to export the GIF matte with a brown color that is similar to the cork board pattern.
Example #3: Sky Background (see demo)
In this example, I have a 1px gradient that is repeated horizontally for the BODY tag. Then I attached a cloud background in the center of the #wrapper tag.
Update: Sky Background Using HTML Selector (see demo)
Thanks to the comments from the readers. Below is an example of the sky background using HTML selector to display the gradient background, so the #wrapper DIV tag is not required. It is a much more cleaner approach.
Download the demo zip now and don’t forget to check out the Large Background Websites.
Credits: thanks to Alex from markup4u.com for the {width: 100%; display: table} CSS trick.
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Comments
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383 GaudStudio http://www.gaudstudio.com
August 27th, 2010 at 11:35 am
Thank you very much.
Really Thank to U.
From gaudstudio.com
Thailand
382 Cáp quang NetPUMA http://cqnetpuma.webs.com
August 21st, 2010 at 6:36 am
Hi
381 Web Design Company Dubai http://www.gulfwebstudio.com
August 16th, 2010 at 9:07 am
Nice spoon feediing about using css backgroud.. hope lot of visitors will do and work out it in their works. thanks for sharing
380 ary
August 7th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Great Site, thank’s for the tutorials.
379 Martin Young http://www.consciousnessdesigns.com
August 6th, 2010 at 3:37 am
You’ve no idea how long I looked round for a solution to the issue of the background shifting when the browser window was reduced - and I thought it was going to be something really complex to sort. Great tip, huge thanks!
378 Ranjitsinh Bhalgariya http://ranjitsinh.wordpress.com
August 3rd, 2010 at 6:42 am
Superb, Thanks very much for good info………
377 Alexander http://www.torontowebdesignexperts.ca
July 17th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Hello,
Great article.
I have tried the first example but the background image shifts when the window is smaller than the centered content.
Are you able to provide a correction to this example ?
Thank you for your help,
Alexander
376 Fred
July 16th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
I’ve been trying to make a background with 100% height for at least 2 hours with no luck and finally this makes it work! thank you so much! I didn’t know that “display: table” option.
Thank you!
Fred
375 Amida
July 13th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Well I was looking for a solution like that, but I got disappointed, the {display:table, width:100%} thing, really only works in chrome/safari. In firefox it goes crazy if you resize quickly the window and in Internet Explorer, the background simply continues to scroll.
Thx for the article anyway !
374 Richy Rich
July 12th, 2010 at 12:52 am
Wow - you got loads of spam comments.