Inspiration for Article Intro Effects

Today we want to share some inspiration for article intro effects with you. You have surely seen some interesting article headers, usually containing a fullscreen image, that have some sort of intro effect, i.e. where some creative transition happens when scrolling or when clicking on a button to continue. We wanted to explore the effect possibilities with fullscreen images and making something happen when continuing to the article body. There are many potentially cool effects and today we want to share just a couple of ideas with you.

One really nice effect that we tried to imitate, is the one seen on Jam3 when choosing a project. There, a fullscreen video is being animated to a narrow bar while the content slides in.

Most of the effects we tried are highly experimental; animating large images can become a bit sluggish, also because a couple of transitions happening at the same time. The effect gets triggered when scrolling begins or when the button is clicked.

Note that hijacking the scroll is really not a great thing to do, so restricting it to a really short period is essential when deciding to use such an invasive method. We are using it here because of demo purposes only, but please keep in mind that it’s not an elaborate solution at all. We are not throttling the scroll handler, something you should definitely do in case you want to use something like this on scroll. Note that the effects can be applied when clicking a button, also. Or you could use something like parallax scrolling for a gradual effect.

The images in the demos are from amazing Unsplash, a fantastic place to find high-quality public domain photos.

The first effect pushes the image to the top together with the title, and a new title element slides in with the content.

The second demo shows the effect that fades out the image at the bottom and fades in the resting content. We do this by using a pseudo element with a linear gradient.

The third effect slices the main image into two where the first half moves up and the second one slides down, giving space for the title to enlarge.

The forth effect cuts away the image and pushes the title to the side.

The fifth effect is similar to the previous one but here we fix the image to the side and allow the content to flow on the right hand side.

The next demo moves the image up and reveals a grid where the current main image will scale up into the grid. This could be a great idea for showing related posts right in the header.

The last effect is an attempt to imitate the cool effect seen on Jam3: the fullscreen image becomes a top bar and the content slides in.

We really hope you enjoyed these effects and get inspired!