A (more) realistic card flip animation

There are a lot of cards on the internet, and a lot of them flip, revealing double-sided content. But the way so many of them flip is not... anatomically correct.

My old writing classes told me to show rather than tell: Which one of these cards feels better?

The Pichu card is how basically every tutorial tells you how to make a card flip animation. Thing is, real-life cards just don't work that way...

The Raichu card realizes two subtle details:

• A real-life card needs to be lifted to be flipped.
• A real-life card has thickness.

• Level -1: Cheating with a component
• Level 0: The Basic Card
• Level 1: Verticality
• Level 2: Thickness
• Level 3: Round Corners + Thickness
• Level 🧠: Keep Accessibility in mind!

I was originally going to just write about how to make a cool flip animation, but I got a little carried away and ended up creating a fully reusable component. Oops 🙂

Install @auroratide/flip-card and you get a web component which can be used in any framework, be it React, Svelte, Vue, or vanilla.

<flip-card>
	<section slot="front">
		<p>The front!</p>
	</section>
	<section slot="back">
		<p>The back!</p>
	</section>
</flip-card>

The basic card we know and love relies on a few key CSS features:

• Absolute positioning
• 3D transformations - specifically rotateY and perspective
• Backface visibility

It's really just two same-sized section boxes on top of each other, with one flipped 180 degrees and its backside invisible. Then rotate their container to reveal the second box's content.

A ton of tutorials already go into detail about how this works, so I'll just link all the appropriate documentation and throw some annotated code here. This'll serve as the base for climbing the Ladder of Card-Flip Enlightenment.

<article class="perspective-container">
   <div class="card">
      <section class="front face" aria-hidden="false"></section>
      <section class="back face" aria-hidden="true"></section>
   </div>
</article>

CSS

.perspective-container {
   perspective: 100em; /* creates an illusion of depth */
   perspective-origin: center;
}

.card {
   width: 15em;
   aspect-ratio: 5 / 7;
   position: relative;
   transform-style: preserve-3d;
}

.card .face {
   /* Hide the backside of the element, for when it is rotated */
   backface-visibility: hidden;
}

.card .back {
   /* The front and back elements occupy the same space */
   position: absolute;
   inset: 0;
   transform: rotateY(180deg);
}

.card section {
   width: 100%;
   height: 100%;
}

/* Later sections will add code to actually flip the card */
/* We'll be applying transformations to the .card class mainly */

When you flip a real-life card, you have to lift it off the surface first, otherwise the card melds into the table. Or more realistically the card bends, cursing you for 7 years.

The traditional approach uses the transition CSS property, but all it's able to do is smoothly take you from one state (rotateY(0deg)) to a different state (rotateY(180deg)). In the case of lifting a card, the start and end states are the same. We need a middle state where the card is lifted vertically, therefore we need a more powerful CSS tool.

Let's use @keyframes and animation!

@keyframes flip-to-front {
   0% { transform: translateZ(0em) rotateY(-180deg); }
   50% { transform: translateZ(var(--flip-height)) rotateY(-270deg); }
   100% { transform: translateZ(0em) rotateY(-360deg); }
}

/* I'm using a second animation for two reasons: 
 *  1. It allows the card to always flip in one direction.
 *  2. The renderer only plays an animation if it changes.
 */
@keyframes flip-to-back {
   0% { transform: translateZ(0em) rotateY(0deg); }
   50% { transform: translateZ(var(--flip-height)) rotateY(-90deg); }
   100% { transform: translateZ(0em) rotateY(-180deg); }
}

.card {
   --flip-height: 17.5em;
   
   animation-duration: 0.75s;
   animation-fill-mode: both;
   animation-timing-function: linear;
   /* NOTE: We're NOT setting the animation with CSS */
   /* By using Javascript, it's easier to prevent the animation from playing as soon as the page loads. */
}

function flipCard(card) {
   card.classList.toggle("facedown")
   const isFacedown = card.classList.contains("facedown")

   card.style.animationName = isFacedown
      ? "flip-to-back"
      : "flip-to-front"
}

Real-life cards have small, albeit non-zero, thickness. And with the power of 3D CSS, we can give our virtual cards thickness too! The effect is subtle but makes the rotation feel much more physical.

The strategy here is to assemble four empty div blocks, representing the card's edges. We'll make them as wide/high as the card's thickness, position them along the card's borders, and then rotateY them into the page.

<div class="card">
   <section class="front face" aria-hidden="false"></section>
   <section class="back face" aria-hidden="true"></section>
   <!-- NEW! We need divs that represent the 4 edges -->
   <div class="top edge"></div>
   <div class="right edge"></div>
   <div class="bottom edge"></div>
   <div class="left edge"></div>
</div>

.card {
   --card-depth: 0.25em;
   /* Without special corner logic, a card with thickness cannot have border radius */
   border-radius: 0;
}

.card .back {
   /* Push the back of the card backward to give space for the edges to live */
   transform: translateZ(calc(-1 * var(--card-depth))) rotateY(180deg);
}

.edge {
   position: absolute;
   background-color: black;
}

/* All of this code is aligning the edges, rotating them into the page */
.right, .left {
   width: var(--card-depth);
   height: 100%;
   inset-block: 0;
} .right {
   inset-inline-end: 0;
   transform: rotateY(270deg);
   transform-origin: right center;
} .left {
   inset-inline-start: 0;
   transform: rotateY(90deg);
   transform-origin: left center;
}

.top, .bottom {
   width: 100%;
   height: var(--card-depth);
   inset-inline: 0;
} .top {
   inset-block-start: 0;
   transform: rotateX(270deg);
   transform-origin: center top;
} .bottom {
   inset-block-end: 0;
   transform: rotateX(90deg);
   transform-origin: center bottom;
}

Ever tried making a rotating cylinder with CSS? Turns out you can't, because CSS doesn't have 3D curved surfaces. The most reasonable way is to simulate a cylinder with a bunch of thin flat surfaces.

Once our card acquires thickness, any rounded corners suddenly become quarter-cylinders. Therefore, we need advanced magic math to make them look correct!

The strategy is to simulate each rounded corner as a series of small, flat divs arranged into quarter-circles whose radii are equal to the card's border radius. The number of divs we use is what I'm calling the --corner-granularity. Higher corner granularity means a smoother corner, but more divs being used.

<div class="card">
   <!-- ...front, back, sides... -->
   <div class="top-right corner">
      <div style="--i: 0;"></div>
      <div style="--i: 1;"></div>
      <div style="--i: 2;"></div>
   </div>
   <div class="bottom-right corner">
      <div style="--i: 0;"></div>
      <div style="--i: 1;"></div>
      <div style="--i: 2;"></div>
   </div>
   <div class="bottom-left corner">
      <!-- ... -->
   </div>
   <div class="top-left corner">
      <!-- ... -->
   </div>
</div>

.card {
   /* The number of faces used to simulate a round corner. More faces means more smooth. */
   --corner-granularity: 3;
   --border-radius: 1.5em;
   border-radius: var(--border-radius);
}

.corner > * {
   background-color: black;
}

/* We have to override the edges so they do not overlap the corners */
.right, .left {
   inset-block: var(--border-radius);
   height: calc(100% - 2 * var(--border-radius));
} .top, .bottom {
   inset-inline: var(--border-radius);
   width: calc(100% - 2 * var(--border-radius));
}

.corner {
   --n: var(--corner-granularity);
   --r: var(--border-radius);
   
   position: absolute;
   transform-style: preserve-3d;
}

/* A corner is composed of a finite number of flat faces that, when arranged in just the right way, looks rounded. */
/* We need to do it this way because curved 3D surfaces do not exist in CSS. */
.corner > * {
   position: absolute;
   inset-block-end: 0;
   width: var(--card-depth);
   height: calc(2 * var(--r) * sin(45deg / var(--n)));
   transform-origin: bottom center;
  
   /* This math constructs a single corner. */
   /* I derived it on a paper somewhere and threw it away, */
   /* so you'll have to derive it yourself if you want to understand what's happening (: */
   transform:
      translateZ(calc(var(--r) * cos(var(--i) * 90deg / var(--n))))
      translateY(calc(-1 * var(--r) * sin(var(--i) * 90deg / var(--n))))
      rotateX(calc(45deg * (2 * var(--i) + 1) / var(--n)));
}

/* The rest of this code slots the corners where they belong. */
.top-right {
   inset-block-start: 0;
   inset-inline-end: 0;

   transform:
      rotateY(90deg)
      translateZ(calc(-1 * var(--r)))
      translateY(var(--r));
} .bottom-right {
   inset-block-end: 0;
   inset-inline-end: 0;

   transform:
      rotateY(90deg)
      rotateX(270deg)
      translateZ(calc(-1 * var(--r)))
      translateY(var(--r));
} .bottom-left {
   inset-block-end: 0;
   inset-inline-start: 0;

   transform:
      rotateY(90deg)
      rotateX(180deg)
      translateZ(calc(-1 * var(--r)))
      translateY(var(--r));
} .top-left {
   inset-block-start: 0;
   inset-inline-start: 0;

   transform:
      rotateY(90deg)
      rotateX(90deg)
      translateZ(calc(-1 * var(--r)))
      translateY(var(--r));
}

Accessibility is the practice of considering all the people who might use your website and making it usable by as many of them as possible. Flippy cards can create a few pitfalls if we're not careful!

• What if the person cannot use a mouse? Is hover the only way to flip your card?
• What if the person uses the Tab key to navigate? Will they run into a button hidden on the backside of your card?
• What if the person uses a screenreader to read the page's content aloud? Will it read content hidden on the backside of the card?
• What if the person prefers less animation? Will the card's flip animation be jarring to them?

While it isn't the point of this article explore accessibility, these are nonetheless important questions to consider. Here are some tools you can use to address them.

• aria-hidden
• inert
• prefers-reduced-motion

Ok I admit, nothing's actually wrong with the normal card flip and the tutorials that teach it ❤️ I mean, why can't it represent a card flip happening in mid-air?

I just wanted to share something I tried and liked, and if you like it, feel free to use it too!

• @auroratide/flip-card web component
• Card Flip Codepen Collection