What triggers the decay effect?

Fast pointer or page movement. The faster the motion, the stronger the smear, and it settles back to sharp when movement stops.

How do I install Decay Card?

Decay Card is part of Charcoal UI Pro. Add the @charcoal registry to components.json with your access token, then run npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/decay-card. It copies decay-card.tsx into components/ui and installs motion, clsx, tailwind-merge.

Is Decay Card free for commercial use?

Decay Card needs a Charcoal UI Pro seat, monthly or a one-time lifetime price. A seat covers unlimited personal and commercial projects, including client work, and every future Pro component.

Does Decay Card work with Next.js?

Yes. It is a client component for React 19 styled with Tailwind CSS 4, so it works in the Next.js App Router and Pages Router, Vite, Remix and Astro.

Can an AI coding agent install Decay Card?

Yes. Connect the Charcoal UI MCP server (https://charcoalui.com/mcp) to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client; get_component returns Decay Card's props and get_install_command returns the exact command.

Decay Card

An image that melts and smears when the pointer or the page moves fast, then settles. Turbulence displaces the pixels and a blur stretched along the direction of travel makes the smear.

Category: Display
Licence: Charcoal UI Pro
Built with: React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, Motion
Dependencies: motion, clsx, tailwind-merge

Examples

Decay Card

Flick the pointer across the page, or scroll quickly.

API reference

Prop	Type	Default	Description
`src`	`string`	—	Image URL.
`alt`	`string`	`""`
`strength`	`number`	`1`	0 to 3. How far the image melts at full speed.
`width`	`number`	`300`
`height`	`number`	`400`
`children`	`ReactNode`	—	Laid over the image, bottom left.
`className`	`string`	—

About Decay Card

Decay Card shows an image that melts and smears when the pointer or the page moves fast, then settles. It gives editorial and art sites a tactile, analogue feel.

Decay Card is a display component for React 19, styled with Tailwind CSS 4 and animated with Motion. It drops into Next.js, Vite, Remix or Astro through the shadcn CLI as a single file you own.

When to use Decay Card

Editorial and magazine sites.
Music and art portfolios.
Fashion lookbooks.
Experimental landing pages.

How it works

An SVG turbulence filter displaces the image in proportion to pointer velocity, with a directional blur for the smear. It relaxes back to sharp when movement stops.

Interactive parts are buttons or links with accessible names, decorative layers are hidden from assistive tech, and everything is reachable by keyboard. With prefers-reduced-motion on, it holds still or settles instantly instead of animating.

Customizing Decay Card

Every prop is documented in the API reference above with its type and default. The ones you will reach for first are listed here.

The Customize panel next to the preview lets you change strength, width, height live, and the Code tab updates to match, so the snippet you copy already carries your values.

src (string): Image URL.
alt (string, default "").
strength (number, default 1): 0 to 3. How far the image melts at full speed.
width (number, default 300).
height (number, default 400).

The example on this page

Decay Card: Flick the pointer across the page, or scroll quickly.

Goes well with Decay Card

These display pieces share its tokens and motion language, so they sit together on one page without clashing.

Tilt Card: A 3D tilt card for React that leans toward the pointer with a moving glare
Spotlight Card: A React spotlight card: an accent glow follows the pointer across card and border
Sortable List: A drag-to-reorder React list with lifted shadows and keyboard sorting
Card Stack: A swipeable React card stack where the next card rises to meet you
Image Compare: A React before and after image comparison slider you can drag anywhere

Install Decay Card

npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/decay-card

Decay Card is part of Charcoal UI Pro. One seat unlocks all 300 Pro components, 107 landing-page sections and 100 full templates, for every personal and client project, with updates included. Add the @charcoal registry once with your access token, then the command above copies decay-card.tsx into components/ui and installs clsx, tailwind-merge.

You own the file you install: no runtime package, no lock-in, nothing to keep in sync. Change it however your product needs.

See Charcoal UI Pro pricing · Pro setup

Frequently asked questions

What triggers the decay effect?: Fast pointer or page movement. The faster the motion, the stronger the smear, and it settles back to sharp when movement stops.
How do I install Decay Card?: Decay Card is part of Charcoal UI Pro. Add the @charcoal registry to components.json with your access token, then run npx shadcn@latest add @charcoal/decay-card. It copies decay-card.tsx into components/ui and installs motion, clsx, tailwind-merge.
Is Decay Card free for commercial use?: Decay Card needs a Charcoal UI Pro seat, monthly or a one-time lifetime price. A seat covers unlimited personal and commercial projects, including client work, and every future Pro component.
Does Decay Card work with Next.js?: Yes. It is a client component for React 19 styled with Tailwind CSS 4, so it works in the Next.js App Router and Pages Router, Vite, Remix and Astro.
Can an AI coding agent install Decay Card?: Yes. Connect the Charcoal UI MCP server (https://charcoalui.com/mcp) to Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP client; get_component returns Decay Card's props and get_install_command returns the exact command.

Decay Card as Markdown · llms.txt