When using padding-top to retain aspect ratio for fluid layout, how do I vertically center text to background image?

Question

I have not been able to find a solution to this and am willing to change whatever I need to as long as I can keep a couple things.

The entire list element needs to be a link, the text within that link needs to be centered to the list item which has a background image. I need this fluid so I choose to use the padding-top to maintain the aspect ratio and to create the correct height. With using that padding top to create the height, I can not for the life of me figure out how to get the text vertically centered. I have seen a few other questions that addresses this issue somewhat but I have not found a single one answered. PLEASE help me!

Here is live example. I need the text to vertically align to the middle of blue elements. http://jsbin.com/OxuxECI/1/edit?html,css,output

HTML

<section>
      <ul>
          <li><a id="monday" href="_monday.html"><span>Monday</span></a></li>
      </ul>
    </section>

CSS

        section {
        position: relative;
        width: 86.029411764%;
        height: 100%;
        margin: -6px auto 0 auto;
        overflow: hidden;
        }   

        section ul {
        list-style-type: none;
        display: inline-block;
        width: 35%;
        min-width: 320px;
        padding: 0;
        margin: .8rem;
        height: 100%;
        }

        section li {
        width: 100%;
        display: block;
        background: url(_images/daybg_03.png) center center no-repeat;
            background-size: contain;
        margin: .8rem auto .8rem auto;
        text-align: center;
        font-size: 0;
        line-height: 0;
        }

        section ul li a {
        width: 100%;
        **padding-top: 14.95%;** /* This gives my container height */
        display: inline-block;
        text-decoration: none;
        text-align: center;

        }

        section ul li a span {
        font-size: 1.3rem;
        color: white;
        text-align: center;

            }

Answer 1

Ok so after searching high and low and no luck I have figured it out!!!

CSS

    section li {
position: relative;
width: 100%;
height: auto;
display: block;
background: url(_images/daybg_03.png) center center no-repeat;
    -webkit-background-size: contain;
    -moz-background-size: contain;
    background-size: contain;
margin: .8rem auto 0 auto;
list-style: none;
text-align: center;
font-size: 0;
padding-top: 14.95%;
}

    section ul li a {
position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
display: block;
text-decoration: none;
text-align: center;
background: rgba(0,191,85,.5);
}

    section ul li a span {
display: block;
position: absolute;
bottom: 0;
width: 100%;
height: 50%;
line-height: 0;
font-size: 1.3rem;
color: white;
text-align: center;
background: rgba(0,159,255,.5);
    }

And the bin http://jsbin.com/enuBeyE/1/edit?html,css,output

I left the background colors in there for visual help for each container.

Answer 2

Infinity Designs' answer works well, but only if you don't need content that spans more than one line.

If you do need content that spans more than one line inside responsive, dynamic height and width vertically centred containers with a fixed aspect ratio, there's good news and bad news:

• Good news: there is a pure CSS method that works in GC, FF, IE7+, etc etc.
• Bad news: the code ain't pretty: it needs four (!) wrapper elements plus a non-semantic spacer. Infinity Designs' method only needs three wrappers, so use that unless you need text wrap.

It's essentially Infinity Designs' approach to the responsive fluid aspect ratio, mixed with Kizu's approach to vertical centring on this other question, using side-by-side inline-blocks with vertical align around a nested block.

JSbin demo

Sample code:

<div class="w1">  
   <!-- make w2 <a> if like the asker you want it all to be a clickable link -->
   <span class="w2"><span class="hh"> </span>
      <span class="w3"> <!-- make w3 <a> if don't want the bkg clickable  -->
         <span class="w4"><!-- or, any block element -->
            Monday
         </span>
      </span>
   </span>
</div>
<style>

.w1 {  /* outer wrapper for aspect ratio */
    position: relative; /*or absolute*/
    display: block; /*or inline-block*/
    padding-top: 25%; /*aspect ratio*/
}

.w2 {  /* wrapper2 resets position to top */
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    width: 100%;
    height: 100%;
    display: block;
    }

.w3 {  /* wrapper3 and hh sit side by side */
    display: inline-block;
    width: 100%;
    text-align: center;
}
.w3, .hh {
    vertical-align: middle;
    display: inline-block;
}
.hh { height: 100% }

.w4 {  /* v.align applies to child block */
    display: block;
}

</style>