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No.91 · Cards

Dither Card

A project card whose picture waits as a coarse one-bit print and resolves on hover — finer and finer dots, then colour — while its meta line types in.

The prompt

The design brief behind this component — reuse it to regenerate, remix, or explain it.

Build a portfolio project card (22.5rem wide, 14px radius, hairline border) that is one link. The top is a 4:3 picture shown as a one-bit Atkinson-dithered print in the card's ink and paper colours; under it an Instrument Serif title with a mono year, a mono uppercase meta line and "Read the case study →". Prepare five prints of the same picture up front, at dither cells of 6, 4, 3, 2 and 1 px (each a tiny canvas drawn up with image-rendering: pixelated). On hover or focus, step through them every 95ms, so the dots get visibly finer, then fade in the full-colour picture over 420ms; a small mono badge reports the current state ("1-BIT · 4PX", "COLOUR"). Meanwhile the meta line types itself in at 22ms per character behind a block caret, the card lifts 3px with a soft shadow, and the arrow nudges 4px. Leaving steps back down to the coarse print faster (60ms per step). The picture defaults to a generated canvas study; pass an image URL to use your own.

Notes

Interaction
Hover or focus the card to resolve the print from coarse dots to colour; leave to drop it back.
Motion
Print steps every 95ms (60ms on the way back), colour fade 420ms, meta typing 22ms per character, lift 400ms.
Accessibility
The whole card is one link with a visible focus ring; the full meta text is always available to screen readers while the typed copy is aria-hidden. Reduced motion jumps straight between the print and the colour picture with no typing.
Responsive
Width is min(100%, 22.5rem); prints are prepared at a fixed size and scaled, so they stay crisp on any screen.
On touch
On touch, focus (tap) resolves the picture; a second tap follows the link.

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301 components