Design a beautiful CSS3 search form

One of the elements most frequently used by websites is probably the search box. If you want to improve user experience in a simple way,

and make it easy to search and find content for your users, then you have to add a search form on your website.

So, today we’re going to cover how to style a search form using the most exciting CSS3 features.

The markup

Below you’ll find the HTML used for this search form. Note the HTML5-specific placeholder and required attributes.
While I initially wished to use the HTML5′s type="search" for the search input, I gave up because of cross browser inconsistency. For now, apparently you need to add some extra CSS lines to override the defaults.

<form class="form-wrapper">
 <input type="text" id="search" placeholder="Search for CSS3, HTML5, jQuery ..." required>
 <input type="submit" value="go" id="submit">
</form>

The CSS

Here are the minimal styles used to create this beautiful CSS3 search form:

.form-wrapper {
 width: 450px;
 padding: 8px;
 margin: 100px auto;
 overflow: hidden;
 border-width: 1px;
 border-style: solid;
 border-color: #dedede #bababa #aaa #bababa;
 -moz-box-shadow: 0 3px 3px rgba(255,255,255,.1), 0 3px 0 #bbb, 0 4px 0 #aaa, 0 5px 5px #444;
 -webkit-box-shadow: 0 3px 3px rgba(255,255,255,.1), 0 3px 0 #bbb, 0 4px 0 #aaa, 0 5px 5px #444;
 box-shadow: 0 3px 3px rgba(255,255,255,.1), 0 3px 0 #bbb, 0 4px 0 #aaa, 0 5px 5px #444;
 -moz-border-radius: 10px;
 -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
 border-radius: 10px;
 background-color: #f6f6f6;
 background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#f6f6f6), to(#eae8e8));
 background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #f6f6f6, #eae8e8);
 background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #f6f6f6, #eae8e8);
 background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #f6f6f6, #eae8e8);
 background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, #f6f6f6, #eae8e8);
 background-image: linear-gradient(top, #f6f6f6, #eae8e8);
}

.form-wrapper #search {
 width: 330px;
 height: 40px;
 padding: 10px 5px;
 float: left;
 font: bold 16px 'lucida sans', 'trebuchet MS', 'Tahoma';
 border: 1px solid #ccc;
 -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ddd inset, 0 1px 0 #fff;
 -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ddd inset, 0 1px 0 #fff;
 box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ddd inset, 0 1px 0 #fff;
 -moz-border-radius: 3px;
 -webkit-border-radius: 3px;
 border-radius: 3px;
}

.form-wrapper #search:focus {
 outline: 0;
 border-color: #aaa;
 -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #bbb inset;
 -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #bbb inset;
 box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #bbb inset;
}

.form-wrapper #search::-webkit-input-placeholder {
   color: #999;
   font-weight: normal;
}

.form-wrapper #search:-moz-placeholder {
 color: #999;
 font-weight: normal;
}

.form-wrapper #search:-ms-input-placeholder {
        color: #999;
        font-weight: normal;
} 

.form-wrapper #submit {
 float: right;
 border: 1px solid #00748f;
 height: 42px;
 width: 100px;
 padding: 0;
 cursor: pointer;
 font: bold 15px Arial, Helvetica;
 color: #fafafa;
 text-transform: uppercase;
 background-color: #0483a0;
 background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#31b2c3), to(#0483a0));
 background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #31b2c3, #0483a0);
 background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #31b2c3, #0483a0);
 background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #31b2c3, #0483a0);
 background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, #31b2c3, #0483a0);
 background-image: linear-gradient(top, #31b2c3, #0483a0);
 -moz-border-radius: 3px;
 -webkit-border-radius: 3px;
 border-radius: 3px;
 text-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(0, 0 ,0, .3);
 -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3) inset, 0 1px 0 #fff;
 -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3) inset, 0 1px 0 #fff;
 box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3) inset, 0 1px 0 #fff;
}

.form-wrapper #submit:hover,
.form-wrapper #submit:focus {
 background-color: #31b2c3;
 background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#0483a0), to(#31b2c3));
 background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #0483a0, #31b2c3);
 background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #0483a0, #31b2c3);
 background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #0483a0, #31b2c3);
 background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, #0483a0, #31b2c3);
 background-image: linear-gradient(top, #0483a0, #31b2c3);
} 

.form-wrapper #submit:active {
 outline: 0;
 -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) inset;
 -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) inset;
 box-shadow: 0 1px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) inset;
}

.form-wrapper #submit::-moz-focus-inner {
 border: 0;
}

Browser support

Below you can find some screenshots with the search form. You’ll notice that it degrades really nice across older browsers. I would add that this CSS3 search form is a ready-to-use one.

Modern browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE10:

Please note that, at this time, Opera supports the HTML5 placeholder attribute but is not styleable for now.
A good news is that Internet Explorer 10 will also support the HTML5 placeholder.