Steampunk Brass Button
<button class="steampunk-btn">
<span class="gears">⚙</span>
<span class="text">STEAM</span>
<span class="gears">⚙</span>
</button>About Steampunk Brass Button
Steampunk Brass Button is a button built with a keyframe animation, gradient fills, transforms and layered shadows. Its stylesheet runs to 38 lines across 5 rules, declaring 18 distinct properties. It styles hover state explicitly, so the component responds to interaction rather than sitting still. The animation is driven by a keyframe sequence named rotate-gears, which you can retime or remove without touching the rest of the styling. Every format shown on this page is the same component, so you can take HTML and CSS depending on how your project is set up. Nothing is minified and nothing depends on a framework.
When to use
- Sites with a strong established look, where a neutral control would sit awkwardly, where a steampunk and brass button fits the surrounding design
- A single prominent button rather than a row of them, since the rotate-gears animation runs continuously and several at once compete with each other
- Palettes built around brass, bronze and dark, where this button can be dropped in without retheming
How it works
The base rule sets the shape with border-radius, display, padding and position. The fill is a gradient rather than a flat colour, so it is a single background declaration with no image to load. Movement is done with transforms rather than by changing position or size, which is what keeps it smooth: transforms are composited and do not force the browser to lay the page out again. State changes are eased with a transition, so hovering does not snap. The looping motion comes from rotate-gears. Changing the animation-duration is usually the only edit needed to make it faster or calmer.
Accessibility
Built on a native <button> element, so keyboard focus and screen reader semantics work without extra attributes. No focus style is defined. Add one before shipping, or keyboard users lose track of position. Animates without a prefers-reduced-motion guard. Wrap the animation in that query if motion sensitivity matters to your audience. Those are 2 things to fix before this ships in front of users.
Browser support
Everything this component uses has been supported across browsers for years, so no fallback is needed.
Related components
Frequently asked questions
Steampunk Brass Button
<button class="steampunk-btn">
<span class="gears">⚙</span>
<span class="text">STEAM</span>
<span class="gears">⚙</span>
</button>What is inside Steampunk Brass Button
Steampunk Brass Button is a CSS button built with a keyframe animation, gradient fills, transforms, defined in 38 lines across 5 selectors.
Techniques used
Animation defined: rotate-gears
CSS properties in this component
align-itemsanimationanimation-directionbackgroundborderborder-radiusbox-shadowcolorcursordisplayfont-familyfont-sizefont-weightgappaddingpositiontransformtransitionAccessibility check2 to fix
- Built on a native <button> element, so keyboard focus and screen reader semantics work without extra attributes.
- No focus style is defined. Add one before shipping, or keyboard users lose track of position.
- Animates without a prefers-reduced-motion guard. Wrap the animation in that query if motion sensitivity matters to your audience.
These notes are generated by reading this component's own source, so they describe what it actually does rather than what a template says. Copy the code above in HTML, CSS and adapt it freely.