CSS Sprites are not new. In fact, they are a rather well-established technique and have managed to become common practice in Web development. Of course, CSS sprites are not always necessary, but in some situation they can bring significant advantages and improvements – particularly if you want to reduce your server load. And if you haven’t heard of CSS sprites before, now is probably a good time to learn what they are, how they work and what tools can help you create and use the technique in your projects.

What Are CSS Sprites?

The term “sprite” (similar to “spirit,” “goblin,” or “elf”) has its origins in computer graphics, in which it described a graphic object blended with a 2-D or 3-D scene through graphics hardware. Because the complexity of video games has continually increased, there was a need for smart techniques that could deal with detailed graphic objects while keeping game-play flowing. One of the techniques developed saw sprites being plugged into a master grid (see the image below), then later pulled out as needed by code that mapped the position of each individual graphic and selectively painted it on the screen.

Sprites were displayed over a static or dynamic background image, and the positioning of the sprite was controlled simply by the hardware controllers. The term was coined because the sprites seemed to “haunt” the display and didn’t really exist in the graphic memory.

The Pokemon Sprite Sheet, consisting of over 1000 graphic objects. Found here. You can click on the image for the larger version (thanks, Ryan!).

Time passed, and at the beginning of the 2000s, when progressive Web designers started to seek alternatives to JavaScript-based rollover menus (with onMouseOver and onMouseOut effects), sprites saw a renaissance in Web development. With CSS, the simple implementation of sprites was possible, and it was much easier and clearer than its JavaScript-based predecessor.

In 2004, Dave Shea suggested a simple CSS-based approach to CSS sprites based on the practice established by those legendary video games. In this case, multiple images used throughout a website would be combined into the so-called “master image.” To display a single image from the master image, one would use the background-position property in CSS, defining the exact position of the image to be displayed. Any hover, active or focus effects would be implemented using the simple definition of the background-position property for the displayed element.

When the page is loaded, it would not load single images one by one (nor hover-state images per request), but would rather load the whole master image at once. It may not sound like a significant improvement, but it actually was: the main disadvantage of the onMouse effects is that JavaScript-based hover effects require two HTTP requests for each image, which takes time and creates that unpleasant “flickering” of images. Because the master image is loaded with the whole page only once with CSS sprites, no additional HTTP requests are needed for hover, active or focus effects (because the image is already loaded), and no “flickering” effect occurs.

Consequence: CSS sprites reduce HTTP requests and the loading time of pages. This is the main reason why CSS sprites are often used on websites with heavy traffic, where millions of page impressions would need “only” a tiny fraction of what could otherwise be 30,000,000. Hence, CSS sprites are commonly used, particularly for navigation (such as for hover effects), icons and buttons.

Where Are CSS Sprites Used?

CSS sprites can be used in various settings. Large websites can combine multiple single images in a meaningful manner, creating clearly separated “chunks” of the master images – the purpose being to keep the design maintainable and easy to update. The large empty space between the images is often used to make sure that the text resizing in browser doesn’t cause side effects such the display of multiple images in the background. In fact, sprites usually work well in a pixel-based design, but they are hard to use in elastic (em-based) designs due to the restricted background-position-property. Essentially, the structure that sprites take depends on the trade-off between maintainability and reduced server load; thus, it varies depending on the project you are working on.

Here are some inspiring (and not so inspiring) examples:

Xing
Xing uses various icons and buttons, as well as its logo, in the sprite.

Amazon
Large, shiny and compact CSS sprites on Amazon.

Apple
Apple uses CSS sprites for various states of its main navigation menu.

YouTube
YouTube takes a vertical approach to its buttons and icons. The whole sprite is 2800 pixels in height!

CNN
CNN uses a modest CSS sprite with its social icons.

Digg
Digg has quite an esoteric sprite, with small arrows and brackets. The large empty space between the images is used to make sure that text resizing doesn’t display multiple images as the background image. You can explicitely define width and height in pixels, so that this problem does not occur – however, in this case the resized text will never break out of the defined box, thus possibly making the text unreadable. Consequently, you must be cautious when using spriting for buttons with variable text labels. For those buttons, you should define font size in pixels also. Or just use the large empty space in the sprite (thanks, daftie!).

Yahoo
Yahoo has nice icons in its sprite, spread out equidistant from each other.

Google
Google sticks to its minimalist design principle with its minimalist CSS sprite.

Dragon Interactive
A design agency with a colorful, vivid CSS sprite for the navigation menu.

TV1.rtp.pt
A huge colorful and qute chaotic CSS sprite on a site of a Portugiese TV-channel (thank you, António Manuel Cardoso!).

CSS Sprites are used to combine many frequently used graphic elements, such as navigation elements, logos, lines, RSS icons, buttons, etc. Conversely, they are not used for any kind content that is likely to change frequently upon release.

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