In a previous article I wrote, Minimal CSS: Dropdown Menus, I showed how you could create a basic menu dropdown with only 121 bytes of CSS. While this demo is great for simple text-based menu dropdowns, it doesn't show just how complex (in a good way) you can make CSS-only menus. So, let's do just that.
I think, like most designers, that the UI and web design work from the Stripe team is pretty fantastic. Their clean approach using subtle animations and minimal elements make for a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, there is one problem with their current dropdown menus on their main website:
They don't work if JavaScript is disabled.
But we can easily fix that. So enough chit-chat, let's rip-off their menu design and recreate it with only CSS!
Although our redesign is far from an exact replica (some subtle animations are missing which could always be added) - it's still impressive what you can do with some bare-bones CSS. Just something to keep in mind the next time you decide to reach for a JavaScript library to implement a similar design.
Load in the CodePen below and play around with the menu dropdown. Feel free to re-use, break. share or steal this for any and all purposes. Enjoy!
See the Pen Stripe Menu Dropdown (Pure CSS) by Bradley Taunt (@bradleytaunt) on CodePen.