Speedy CSS Tip! Animated Gradient Text

Let's make that animated gradient text effect with scoped custom properties and background-clip

Nov 3, 2022

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Create the markup for your text. Let's use a header with the word "Speedy":

<h1 class="boujee-text">Hello!</h1>

Then, let's give our body a darker background-color:

body {
  display: grid;
  place-items: center;
  min-height: 100vh;
  background: hsl(0 0% 20%);
}

Bump up the font-size on our text. Use clamp to make it responsive:

.boujee-text {
  font-size: clamp(3rem, 25vmin, 8rem);
}

Create two custom properties for the colors we're going to use. Apply a linear-gradient to the background using those colors and rotate it by 90 degrees:

.boujee-text {
  --color-one: hsl(15 90% 55%);
  --color-two: hsl(40 95% 55%);
  font-size: clamp(3rem, 25vmin, 8rem);
  background: linear-gradient(
                90deg,
                var(--color-one),
                var(--color-two),
                var(--color-one)
              ) 0 0 / 100% 100%;
}

Create a custom property that you can use for the horizontal background size. Use it for background-size-x:

.boujee-text {
  --bg-size: 400%;
  --color-one: hsl(15 90% 55%);
  --color-two: hsl(40 95% 55%);
  font-size: clamp(3rem, 25vmin, 8rem);
  background: linear-gradient(
                90deg,
                var(--color-one),
                var(--color-two),
                var(--color-one)
              ) 0 0 / var(--bg-size) 100%;
}

To clip the background to the text set the color to transparent, and set background-clip: text:

.boujee-text {
  --bg-size: 400%;
  --color-one: hsl(15 90% 55%);
  --color-two: hsl(40 95% 55%);
  font-size: clamp(3rem, 25vmin, 8rem);
  background: linear-gradient(
                90deg,
                var(--color-one),
                var(--color-two),
                var(--color-one)
              ) 0 0 / var(--bg-size) 100%;
  color: transparent;
  -webkit-background-clip: text;
  background-clip: text;
}

At this point, you could leave it there and experiment with the background-position and the gradient used in the background-image. Or, you could animate that gradient across your text. First, define a keyframe for the animation. This will use the --bg-size custom property you defined earlier. A good example of scoped custom properties making maintenance easier for you.

@keyframes move-bg {
  to {
    background-position: var(--bg-size) 0;
  }
}

Then apply the animation using animation:

.boujee-text {
  --bg-size: 400%;
  --color-one: hsl(15 90% 55%);
  --color-two: hsl(40 95% 55%);
  font-size: clamp(3rem, 25vmin, 8rem);
  background: linear-gradient(
                90deg,
                var(--color-one),
                var(--color-two),
                var(--color-one)
              ) 0 0 / var(--bg-size) 100%;
  color: transparent;
  background-clip: text;
  -webkit-background-clip: text;
  animation: move-bg 8s infinite linear;
}

To take this further, you can wrap your animation code in a media query to respect your user's preferences for motion:

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference) {
  .boujee-text {
    animation: move-bg 8s linear infinite;
  }
  @keyframes move-bg {
    to {
      background-position: var(--bg-size) 0;
    }
  }
}