Glassmorphism Generator

Building a frosted-glass effect that stays readable

Glassmorphism gives panels a frosted-glass look by blurring whatever sits behind them and adding a light, semi-transparent tint with a soft border. It works well for cards over colourful backgrounds, floating navigation bars and overlays on photos. The effect relies on the CSS backdrop-filter property, which is supported in current versions of all major browsers.

The effect depends entirely on what is behind the panel. Over a plain white or grey background, a glass panel looks like a faint grey box and the blur has nothing to show. That is why the preview places the panel over a busy, colourful background. Use this style where there is something interesting underneath, such as a gradient, an image or overlapping shapes. Adjust the blur, transparency, saturation, tint, border and corner radius until the panel feels light but clearly separate from what lies behind it.

Readability is the biggest risk with glass effects. Text sitting on a semi-transparent panel can lose contrast when the background behind it changes, especially with photos. Increase the tint opacity or blur if text becomes hard to read, and check the result on both light and dark parts of the background. Provide a solid fallback colour for older browsers and for users who turn on reduced transparency settings, so content remains readable. If the effect does not appear, check that the element has a semi-transparent background and that something visible sits behind it. Heavy blur over large areas can slow down older phones, so use it on a few elements rather than everywhere.