Design stunning image grid galleries with HTML and CSS
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Understanding CSS Grid
- What is CSS Grid?
- How does CSS Grid work?
- Benefits of using CSS Grid
- Creating the HTML structure
- Setting up the HTML file
- Creating the main container
- Specifying the images
- Applying CSS styling
- Resetting the body margin
- Setting the grid properties
- Defining the grid columns and rows
- Adjusting image dimensions and aspect ratio
- Adding responsiveness for mobile devices
- Creating customizable layouts
- Creating helper classes for column and row spans
- Making images span multiple columns
- Making images span multiple rows
- Conclusion
How to Create an Image Grid Using HTML and CSS Grid
In this tutorial, we will learn how to create an image grid using HTML and CSS Grid. CSS Grid is a powerful layout system that allows us to create complex grid-based layouts with ease. By the end of this tutorial, you will be able to create a customizable and responsive image grid that can adapt to different screen sizes.
1. Introduction
The image grid we will create in this tutorial will allow you to display multiple images in a grid-like structure. Each image will be contained within a grid cell, and you will be able to customize the width, height, and responsiveness of the grid.
2. Understanding CSS Grid
What is CSS Grid?
CSS Grid is a layout system that allows you to create two-dimensional grid-based layouts. It provides a flexible and powerful way to arrange elements on a web page.
How does CSS Grid work?
CSS Grid works by dividing a web page into rows and columns. You can then place elements within these rows and columns to create your desired layout. Elements can span multiple rows and columns, giving you full control over the placement and sizing of your content.
Benefits of using CSS Grid
There are several benefits to using CSS Grid for creating layouts:
- Easy to create complex layouts
- Responsive by default
- Simplifies the code and reduces the number of nested elements
- Provides greater control over the placement and alignment of elements
- Supports flexible and adaptive designs
3. Creating the HTML structure
To begin creating our image grid, we need to set up the HTML structure.
- Start by creating a new HTML file and linking a CSS stylesheet.
- Inside the
<body>
tag, create a <div>
with a class of image-grid
. This will be the main container for our images.
- Inside the
image-grid
div, add multiple <img>
elements. For each image, specify the source URL and add a descriptive alt text.
4. Applying CSS styling
Now that we have set up the HTML structure, we can apply CSS styling to create the image grid.
- Set the margin of the
<body>
element to 0 to ensure that the image grid takes up the entire width and height of the browser. This step is optional if you plan to place the image grid within another part of your web page.
- Target the
image-grid
class and set the gap
property to 16px. This will create a gap between each image in the grid.
- Define the number of columns in the grid by setting a custom CSS variable called
--num-cols
to 4. This variable will be used later to define the grid template columns.
- Specify the row height by setting the
--row-height
variable to 300px. This will ensure that each row in the grid has a height of 300 pixels.
- Set the
box-sizing
property to border-box
to include padding and border in the total width and height of each grid cell.
- Apply a padding of 16px to the grid cells using the
--gap
variable.
- Set the
display
property of the grid container to grid
to enable CSS Grid.
- Define the grid template columns using the
grid-template-columns
property. Set it to repeat(var(--num-cols), 1fr)
to create four equal-width columns.
- Specify the grid auto rows by setting the
grid-auto-rows
property to var(--row-height)
. This will allow the grid to have an unlimited number of rows with a height of 300 pixels.
- To ensure that the images within the grid cells take up the entire width and height of their respective cells, target the
image-grid img
selector and set the width
and height
properties to 100%.
5. Creating customizable layouts
To make the image grid more dynamic, we can create helper classes that allow us to customize the layout of individual grid cells.
- Create a class called
image-grid-col-2
and target the image-grid-col-2
class inside the image-grid
. Set the grid-column
property to span 2
. This will make the image span two columns in the grid.
- Similarly, create a class called
image-grid-row-2
and target the image-grid-row-2
class inside the image-grid
. Set the grid-row
property to span 2
. This will make the image span two rows in the grid.
6. Conclusion
In this tutorial, we have learned how to create an image grid using HTML and CSS Grid. We have covered the basics of CSS Grid, how to structure the HTML, apply CSS styling, and create customizable layouts. With this knowledge, you can now create your own image grids and customize them according to your needs.