Attention

Breathe Animation

A slow swell and settle, like breathing.

Edit this in the studio

Opens with this animation loaded. Nothing is uploaded — the scene travels in the link.

animation.css
.breathe {
  transform: translate3d(208px, 128px, 0);
  width: 64px;
  height: 64px;
  background: #22d3ee;
  border-radius: 999px;
  animation: breathe-anim 2600ms linear 0ms infinite both;
  will-change: transform, opacity;
}

@keyframes breathe-anim {
  0% {
    transform: translate3d(208px, 128px, 0);
    opacity: 0.85;
    animation-timing-function: ease-in-out;
  }
  50% {
    transform: translate3d(208px, 128px, 0) scale(1.05, 1.05);
    opacity: 1;
    animation-timing-function: ease-in-out;
  }
  100% {
    transform: translate3d(208px, 128px, 0);
    opacity: 0.85;
  }
}

@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
  .breathe {
    animation: none;
    transition: none;
  }
}

Why it is built this way

Long and shallow on purpose. An idle animation should be noticeable only when you look directly at it — the moment it competes with reading, it is too fast or too large.

What it animates

3 properties across 2 CSS declarations. The bar shows when each one is moving.

Opacity
opacity
0.85 0.85
3 stopscompositor
Scale X
transform
1 1
3 stopscompositor
Scale Y
transform
1 1
3 stopscompositor

What it costs to run

Opacity, scale x and scale y are handled by the compositor: no layout, no repaint, and the work can run off the main thread. This is the cheap end of CSS animation, which is why it stays smooth on a slow phone where other properties will not.

It runs for 2.60s across 9 keyframe stops, with every property moving over the same window.

One curve throughout: Ease In Out on a plain box. Keeping a single easing across every property is what makes a multi-property animation read as one movement rather than several things happening at once.

Accessibility

Nothing here hides content — opacity, scale x and scale y move over 2.60s and the element is visible throughout. The exported prefers-reduced-motion guard still silences it, which matters most for the looping ones: motion that never stops is the kind that makes people feel unwell.

Related animations

breathepulseidleloop