20 CSS Link Hover Effect Designs
Neon Sign Flicker
On hover the link flickers like a faulty neon sign powering on — irregular opacity stutters via non-uniform steps() keyframes for ~1 second, then settles into a steady glow. Finite, intentional, premium.
Neon Sign Flicker the 7th 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-neonblink">VACANCY</a>
.cle-neonblink {
display: inline-block;
padding: 6px 18px;
color: #ff6c8a;
font:
700 17px/1.2 "Courier New",
monospace;
letter-spacing: 0.18em;
text-decoration: none;
text-shadow: 0 0 8px rgba(255, 108, 138, 0.4);
border: 1.5px solid rgba(255, 108, 138, 0.4);
border-radius: 4px;
background: #15081a;
transition:
color 0.2s,
border-color 0.2s,
background 0.3s;
}
.cle-neonblink:hover,
.cle-neonblink:focus-visible {
color: #ffe1ea;
border-color: #ff6c8a;
background: #1f0d24;
animation: cle-neonblink-flicker 1.1s steps(1, end);
}
@keyframes cle-neonblink-flicker {
0% {
opacity: 1;
text-shadow: none;
}
3% {
opacity: 0.2;
text-shadow: none;
}
6% {
opacity: 1;
text-shadow:
0 0 14px #ff6c8a,
0 0 4px #fff;
}
10% {
opacity: 0.4;
text-shadow: none;
}
13% {
opacity: 1;
text-shadow:
0 0 14px #ff6c8a,
0 0 4px #fff;
}
18% {
opacity: 0.1;
text-shadow: none;
}
22% {
opacity: 1;
text-shadow:
0 0 14px #ff6c8a,
0 0 4px #fff;
}
35% {
opacity: 0.5;
text-shadow: 0 0 8px #ff6c8a;
}
38% {
opacity: 1;
text-shadow:
0 0 18px #ff6c8a,
0 0 6px #fff;
}
55% {
opacity: 0.6;
text-shadow: 0 0 6px #ff6c8a;
}
58% {
opacity: 1;
text-shadow:
0 0 22px #ff6c8a,
0 0 8px #fff;
}
100% {
opacity: 1;
text-shadow:
0 0 22px #ff6c8a,
0 0 8px #fff;
}
}
@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
.cle-neonblink:hover,
.cle-neonblink:focus-visible {
animation: none;
text-shadow:
0 0 22px #ff6c8a,
0 0 8px #fff;
}
}