Ideas for Subtle Hover Effects

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It’s time for some fresh hover effect inspiration! Nowadays we are seeing a lot of delicate designs with fine lines, lots of white space, clean typography and subtle effects. With that beautiful trend in mind we want to share some creative ideas for grid item hover effects. It’s all about being subtle with that little delightful surprise.

The techniques we are using for these hover effects involve 3D transforms and some pseudo-element transitions. Note that these will only work in modern browsers.

Sadly, transitions on text in Firefox are not very smooth which influences most of the effects.

The beautiful photography is from Unsplash, a site that brings you 10 free hi-resolution photos every 10 days. The icons used in one of the hover styles is from the Feather icon set by Cole Bemis.

This article was updated on 28 of October 2014 and we’ve added a second set of effects.

For the structure we are simply using a grid with figures:

<div class="grid">

	<figure class="effect-lily">
		<img src="img/1.jpg" alt="img01"/>
		<figcaption>
			<h2>Nice <span>Lily</span></h2>
			<p>Lily likes to play with crayons and pencils</p>
			<a href="#">View more</a>
		</figcaption>			
	</figure>

	<!-- ... -->
	
</div>

With some general styles defined for the grid and its items, we then specify the individual effects.

The following effect, called “Sadie”, will have a pseudo-element with a linear gradient slide in from the bottom and reveal some more text.

The title will change color:

figure.effect-sadie figcaption::before {
	position: absolute;
	top: 0;
	left: 0;
	width: 100%;
	height: 100%;
	background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(72,76,97,0) 0%, rgba(72,76,97,0.8) 75%);
	content: '';
	opacity: 0;
	transform: translate3d(0,50%,0);
}

figure.effect-sadie h2 {
	position: absolute;
	top: 50%;
	left: 0;
	width: 100%;
	color: #484c61;
	transition: transform 0.35s, color 0.35s;
	transform: translate3d(0,-50%,0);
}

figure.effect-sadie figcaption::before,
figure.effect-sadie p {
	transition: opacity 0.35s, transform 0.35s;
}

figure.effect-sadie p {
	position: absolute;
	bottom: 0;
	left: 0;
	padding: 2em;
	width: 100%;
	opacity: 0;
	transform: translate3d(0,10px,0);
}

figure.effect-sadie:hover h2 {
	color: #fff;
	transform: translate3d(0,-50%,0) translate3d(0,-40px,0);
}

figure.effect-sadie:hover figcaption::before ,
figure.effect-sadie:hover p {
	opacity: 1;
	transform: translate3d(0,0,0);
}

We’ve omitted the prefixed properties for the sake of brevity; you will find them in the style sheet.

There are a lot of possibilities and these effects are just a small collection for your inspiration. We hope you enjoy it!