Bootstrap navbar-expand-md height increasing #768px - 992px - html

Question

I'm having a slight problem with the navbar-expand-md. From 768px to 992px the navbar height increases and the navbar-brand gets pushed a little down. It's a minor issue, but it's really bugging me and I can't seem to solve this problem. My skills are not to proficient so I'm at the end of my wit and would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance - happy holidays, stay healthy.
The issue described above can be seen here:
https://jsfiddle.net/w3do6z74/
Navbar-code:
<nav class="navbar navbar-expand-md navbar-dark bg-dark">
<div class="container-fluid">
<a class="navbar-brand" href="#">brandname</a>
<button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-bs-toggle="collapse" data-bs-target="#navbarSupportedContent" aria-controls="navbarSupportedContent" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
<span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
</button>
<div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="navbarSupportedContent">
<ul class="navbar-nav me-auto mb-2 mb-lg-0">
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#"><img src="imgs/category_bar_history.png" class="category-bar">History</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#"><img src="imgs/category_bar_nature.png" class="category-bar">Nature</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#"><img src="imgs/category_bar_travel.png" class="category-bar">Travel & Food</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#"><img src="imgs/category_bar_arts.png" class="category-bar">Arts</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#"><img src="imgs/category_bar_science.png" class="category-bar">Science</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#"><img src="imgs/category_bar_crime.png" class="category-bar">Crime</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link nav-custom-link" href="#">HYPE</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</nav>
Custom-Css:
.nav-custom-link {
font-weight: bold;
font-style: italic;
}
.navbar {
border-bottom: 1px solid black;
margin-bottom: 12px;
padding-top: 5px;
padding-bottom: 5px;
}
.navbar-brand {
font-family: 'Audiowide', cursive;
}
.category-bar {
padding-right: 4px;
}
.navbar-toggler {
padding: 0.2rem 0.55rem;
font-size: 1.1rem;
}
.navbar-toggler:focus {
box-shadow: 0 0 0 0;
}

Answer 1

If you check the CSS in dev tools, you can see that one of the things changing on the ul element is the bottom margin. It's 0.5rem by default and 0 if the minimum width is larger than 992px:
#media (min-width: 768px)
.navbar-expand-md .navbar-nav {
flex-direction: row;
}
.mb-2 {
margin-bottom: .5rem!important;
}
#media (min-width: 992px)
.mb-lg-0 {
margin-bottom: 0!important;
}
It's because you added mb-2 and mb-lg-0 classes to your ul element:
<ul class="navbar-nav me-auto mb-2 mb-lg-0"></ul>
To fix this, you can add mb-0 and remove mb-lg-0:
<ul class="navbar-nav me-auto mb-0"></ul>