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No.38 · Buttons

Ember Button

A warm amber button with a soft gold glow, and ornaments that draw in: circuit traces that power on, or hand-sketched sparks.

The prompt

Written for the variant you picked above: Power trace

Design a warm, confident primary button for a dark interface. It's an amber (#e8a24a) rounded rectangle (6px radius, 44px tall, medium-weight label with -0.01em tracking) with a faint white inner highlight along its top edge. On hover it brightens to #f3b45f and gains a soft gold drop-glow beneath it; on press it sinks by exactly 1px. An optional arrow (↗) nudges 2px up and to the right on hover. All transitions are 200ms cubic-bezier(0.4,0,0.2,1). Ornaments, when used, play once when the button scrolls into view (IntersectionObserver, 40% visible); under reduced motion they appear in their final state. Selected variant — Power trace: Power trace ornament (ornament="trace", size lg, "Open the console"): two right-angled circuit traces, one above-right and one below-left of the button, each ending in a small round pad. They draw themselves in 600ms (ease-out-expo, the second 90ms later) in a dim grey, then "power on": the line turns amber and the pad fills with a soft amber glow.

Notes

Interaction
Hover brightens and glows; press translates 1px down. Ornaments draw once when 40% of the button is visible.
Motion
Button: 200ms colour/shadow/transform. Trace: 600ms stroke draw (+90ms for the second), power-on at 600/690ms with a 200ms fill + glow. Sparkle: 450ms stroke draw.
Accessibility
Polymorphic: a real <button type="button"> by default, an <a> when href is set (external links get rel="noopener noreferrer"). Ornaments are aria-hidden SVGs. Visible amber focus outline with 3px offset.
Responsive
Ornamented buttons are width min(100%, 20.5rem) so the flourishes never overflow narrow screens; sparkles shrink from 32px to 28px below 640px.
On touch
Nothing depends on hover — the ornament is scroll-triggered, so it plays the same on touch.

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301 components