--- version: "alpha" name: "Interactive Cursor Design" description: "Design with interactive cursor effects. Ideal for landing pages, saas. AI-ready template." colors: primary: "#1A1A1A" secondary: "#4A4A4A" tertiary: "#0066FF" neutral: "#FFFFFF" typography: h1: fontFamily: System UI stack fontSize: 2.25rem fontWeight: 700 body-md: fontFamily: System UI stack fontSize: 1rem fontWeight: 400 label-caps: fontFamily: System UI stack fontSize: 0.75rem fontWeight: 500 --- ## Overview Design with interactive cursor effects. Ideal for landing pages, saas. AI-ready template. Custom cursors have a messy, beautiful lineage. Back in the Flash era, every agency site replaced the arrow with something absurd — a spinning logo, a trailing particle system, a tiny hand that waved at you. It was maximalist and often terrible, but the impulse was right: the cursor is the one element users physically control, so why not make it part of the experience? Flash died, and custom cursors mostly disappeared with it. For nearly a decade, the default arrow ruled. Then around 2018-2019, studios like Locomotive, Aristide Benoist, and Active Theory brought them back — this time with purpose. Modern implementations use CSS cursor properties for simple swaps and JavaScript with requestAnimationFrame for physics-based followers, magnetic effects, and contextual shape-shifting. The cursor became a design tool, not a gimmick. The accessibility conversation is real and unresolved. Custom cursors can disorient users with motor impairments, break expected interaction patterns, and fail entirely on touch devices. The best implementations respect prefers-reduced-motion, maintain click target clarity, and treat the custom cursor as an enhancement layer — never replacing system defaults for users who need them. It's a tension between expression and usability that every team shipping this pattern has to navigate honestly. - Density: 5/10 — Balanced - Variance: 4/10 — Moderate - Motion: 4/10 — Subtle - **Style:** Interactive, Cursor-Driven, Playful, Dynamic - **Keywords:** Custom cursor, cursor as tool, hover effects, cursor feedback, pointer transformation, cursor trail, magnetic cursor - **Era:** 2025+ Interactive - **Light/Dark:** ✓ Full / ✓ Full ## Colors - Palette derived from style keywords and era context ## Typography - **Display / Hero:** System UI stack (-apple-system, sans-serif) — Weight 700, tight tracking, used for headline impact - **Body:** System UI stack (-apple-system, sans-serif) — Weight 400, 16px/1.6 line-height, max 72ch per line - **UI Labels / Captions:** System UI stack (-apple-system, sans-serif) — 0.875rem, weight 500, slight letter-spacing - **Monospace:** JetBrains Mono — Used for code, metadata, and technical values Scale: - Hero: clamp(2.5rem, 5vw, 4rem) - H1: 2.25rem - H2: 1.5rem - Body: 1rem / 1.6 - Small: 0.875rem ## Layout - **Grid:** CSS Grid primary. Max-width containment: 1280px centered with 1.5rem side padding. - **Spacing rhythm:** Balanced. Base unit: 0.5rem (8px). - **Section vertical gaps:** clamp(4rem, 8vw, 8rem). - **Hero layout:** Split-screen (text left, visual right). - **Feature sections:** Zig-zag alternating text+image rows. No 3-equal-columns. - **Mobile collapse:** All multi-column layouts collapse below 768px. No horizontal overflow. - **z-index contract:** base (0) / sticky-nav (100) / overlay (200) / modal (300) / toast (500). ## Elevation & Depth Cursor scale on hover, magnetic pull to elements, cursor morphing, trail effects, blend mode cursors, click feedback - **Physics:** Ease-out curves, 200-300ms duration. Smooth and predictable. - **Entry animations:** Fade + translate-Y (16px → 0) over 420ms ease-out. Staggered cascades for lists: 80ms between items. - **Hover states:** Subtle color shift + shadow adjustment over 200ms. - **Page transitions:** Fade only (200ms). - **Performance:** Only transform and opacity animated. No layout-triggering properties. ## Shapes Base corner radius: 8px. See rounded tokens in front matter for the full scale. ## Components - **Primary Button:** Subtly rounded (0.5rem) shape. Accent color fill. Hover: 8% darken + subtle lift shadow. Active: -1px translate tactile press. Font weight 600. No outer glows. - **Secondary / Ghost Button:** Outline variant. 1.5px border in muted color. Text in primary color. Hover: subtle background fill. - **Cards:** Subtly rounded (0.5rem) corners. Surface background. Subtle shadow (0 2px 12px rgba(0,0,0,0.06)). 1px border stroke. - **Inputs:** Label above input. 1px border stroke. Focus ring: 2px accent color offset 2px. Error text below in semantic red. No floating labels. - **Navigation:** Primary surface background. Active item: accent color indicator. Font weight 500 when active. - **Skeletons:** Shimmer animation matching component dimensions. No circular spinners. - **Empty States:** Icon-based composition with descriptive text and action button. ## Do's and Don'ts - No emojis in UI — use icon system only (Lucide, Heroicons) - No pure black (#000000) — use off-black or charcoal variants - No oversaturated accent colors (saturation cap: 80%) - No 3-column equal-width feature layouts — use zig-zag or asymmetric grid - No `h-screen` — use `min-h-[100dvh]` - No AI copywriting clichés: "Elevate", "Seamless", "Unleash", "Next-Gen" - No broken external image links — use picsum.photos or inline SVG - No generic lorem ipsum in demos - Do Custom cursor works - Do Hover morph smooth - Do Magnetic pull subtle - Do Trail performance ok - Do Click feedback visible - Do Touch fallback provided ## Use Case Landing pages, SaaS