Unveiling the Secrets to Creating Stunning and Pleasing Shadows in CSS and Figma

Good Shadow Palette Generator

The only known way to achieve good shadows is to stack multiple shadow layers. Each layer should be customized with different values for x/y offset, blur radius, spread, color, and opacity.

There’s a cool tool you can use to get great shadow, made by Josh Comeau.

https://www.joshwcomeau.com/shadow-palette/

CSS

:root {
  --shadow-color: 0deg 0% 63%;
  --shadow-elevation-low:
    0.3px 0.5px 0.7px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34),
    0.4px 0.8px 1px -1.2px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34),
    1px 2px 2.5px -2.5px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34);
  --shadow-elevation-medium:
    0.3px 0.5px 0.7px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.36),
    0.8px 1.6px 2px -0.8px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.36),
    2.1px 4.1px 5.2px -1.7px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.36),
    5px 10px 12.6px -2.5px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.36);
  --shadow-elevation-high:
    0.3px 0.5px 0.7px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34),
    1.5px 2.9px 3.7px -0.4px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34),
    2.7px 5.4px 6.8px -0.7px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34),
    4.5px 8.9px 11.2px -1.1px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34),
    7.1px 14.3px 18px -1.4px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34),
    11.2px 22.3px 28.1px -1.8px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34),
    17px 33.9px 42.7px -2.1px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34),
    25px 50px 62.9px -2.5px hsl(var(--shadow-color) / 0.34);
}

Figma

• ‘drop shadow’
• X: 0 Y:4 B: 20 S:0
• Opacity: #000 8%