20 CSS Link Hover Effect Designs
Letter Push
Each letter shifts down 2px on hover with a tiny per-letter stagger via :nth-child — a wave that ripples through the word.
Letter Push the 10th of 20 designs in the 20 CSS Link Hover Effect Designs collection. The design is implemented in pure CSS — no JavaScript required. Copy the HTML and CSS panels below into your project. Because the demo is pure CSS, it works in any framework or templating engine you happen to use. The design honours prefers-reduced-motion and uses real semantic markup, so it ships accessibility-ready out of the box.
Live preview
The code
<a href="#" class="cle-push"> <span>D</span><span>i</span><span>s</span><span>c</span><span>o</span><span>v</span><span>e</span ><span>r</span> </a>
.cle-push {
display: inline-flex;
color: #c4b5fd;
font:
700 18px/1.2 system-ui,
sans-serif;
text-decoration: none;
letter-spacing: 0.02em;
border-bottom: 1.5px solid rgba(124, 108, 255, 0.4);
padding-bottom: 3px;
transition: border-color 0.25s;
}
.cle-push:hover {
border-bottom-color: #7c6cff;
}
.cle-push span {
display: inline-block;
transition:
transform 0.35s cubic-bezier(0.65, 0, 0.35, 1),
color 0.25s;
}
.cle-push:hover span {
color: #fff;
transform: translateY(-3px);
}
.cle-push:hover span:nth-child(1) {
transition-delay: 0s;
}
.cle-push:hover span:nth-child(2) {
transition-delay: 0.04s;
}
.cle-push:hover span:nth-child(3) {
transition-delay: 0.08s;
}
.cle-push:hover span:nth-child(4) {
transition-delay: 0.12s;
}
.cle-push:hover span:nth-child(5) {
transition-delay: 0.16s;
}
.cle-push:hover span:nth-child(6) {
transition-delay: 0.2s;
}
.cle-push:hover span:nth-child(7) {
transition-delay: 0.24s;
}
.cle-push:hover span:nth-child(8) {
transition-delay: 0.28s;
}