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CSS Hearts: 5 Ways to Create Heart Shapes with Pure CSS

Master 5 different techniques to create heart shapes using pure CSS. From border-radius tricks to clip-path and SVG. Copy-paste ready code snippets.

P

Pakua De

Frontend Developer & Creative Coding Lead

Published

Jul 16, 2026

Read Time

7 min read

love.html
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Creative Coding Projects

🎯 5 CSS Heart Techniques

Method 1: The Classic (Rotated Squares)

css
1234567891011121314151617181920212223 
.heart-classic {
    position: relative;
    width: 100px; height: 90px;
}
.heart-classic::before,
.heart-classic::after {
    content: '';
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    width: 52px; height: 80px;
    border-radius: 50px 50px 0 0;
    background: #ff4d6d;
}
.heart-classic::before {
    left: 50px;
    transform: rotate(-45deg);
    transform-origin: 0 100%;
}
.heart-classic::after {
    left: 0;
    transform: rotate(45deg);
    transform-origin: 100% 100%;
}

Method 2: clip-path (Modern)

css
12345 
.heart-clip {
    width: 100px; height: 100px;
    background: #ff4d6d;
    clip-path: path('M50 90 C25 70, 0 50, 0 30 C0 10, 20 0, 35 0 C45 0, 50 10, 50 20 C50 10, 55 0, 65 0 C80 0, 100 10, 100 30 C100 50, 75 70, 50 90Z');
}

Method 3: Border-radius Only

css
123456 
.heart-border {
    width: 50px; height: 50px;
    background: #ff4d6d;
    transform: rotate(-45deg);
    border-radius: 50% 0 50% 50%;
}

Method 4: Inline SVG

html
123 
<svg viewBox="0 0 32 32" width="100">
    <path fill="#ff4d6d" d="M16 28 C8 20, 0 14, 0 8 C0 3, 3 0, 7 0 C11 0, 14 3, 16 6 C18 3, 21 0, 25 0 C29 0, 32 3, 32 8 C32 14, 24 20, 16 28Z"/>
</svg>

Method 5: Box-shadow Magic

css
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.heart-shadow {
    width: 10px; height: 10px;
    background: transparent;
    box-shadow:
        /* Build heart pixel by pixel */
        5px 0 0 #ff4d6d, 10px 0 0 #ff4d6d,
        0 5px 0 #ff4d6d, 5px 5px 0 #ff4d6d,
        10px 5px 0 #ff4d6d, 15px 5px 0 #ff4d6d,
        -5px 10px 0 #ff4d6d, 0 10px 0 #ff4d6d,
        5px 10px 0 #ff4d6d, 10px 10px 0 #ff4d6d,
        15px 10px 0 #ff4d6d, 20px 10px 0 #ff4d6d,
        0 15px 0 #ff4d6d, 5px 15px 0 #ff4d6d,
        10px 15px 0 #ff4d6d, 15px 15px 0 #ff4d6d,
        5px 20px 0 #ff4d6d, 10px 20px 0 #ff4d6d;
}

Each method has trade-offs — use clip-path for modern browsers, the classic method for maximum compatibility.

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About the Author: Pakua De

Frontend Developer & Creative Coding Lead

Pakua spends most weekends turning odd ideas — bouncing DVD logos, generative art, tiny browser games — into working code. He writes Geeky Script's Creative Coding series, teaching JavaScript and CSS through playful, visual projects rather than dry syntax drills.

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