The End Design

First the design we’ll be putting together. (Click the image below for a larger view)

It’s quite an elegant design, which would probably suit a designer portfolio type site, but really could be altered for all sorts of purposes. It relies on having elegant typography, a structured layout and a visually interesting background.

The real power of this design is to show you what can be accomplished by keeping it simple. At the end of this photoshop part of the tutorial, I’ll show you how we can easily swap backgrounds and fonts and explain why this design works well.

It’s a simple structure: horizontal menu, main heading panel and content area. Although this is a homepage design, you could imagine an interior page would simply have a different heading panel and new content area. For the purposes of simplicity, we’ll only be putting together the homepage design.

Step 1

First of all, create a new document. Mine is 1100px wide x 1100px high. This is so that I can create a website made for 1024px wide, but still have space to decide what is going to happen outside the viewable area, so that it degrades nicely even on larger screens.

Now our first task is to create a nice abstract background. To do this we’ll draw a linear gradient down using these two colours: #1b204c to #472373.

Step 2

Now we want a visually interesting background which is abstract enough that it doesn’t distract from the text. Fortunately there is an awesome watercolour image available free via GoMedia’s Arsenal, click on the freebie section and you’ll find two watercolours, the one we want is the greenish one.

Now while it’s very pleasant as is, it’s much cooler if we press CTRL-I and invert it so it’s that nice pink/purple on black.

Step 3

Now copy the watercolour on to our main canvas and press CTRL-T to transform it down to a reasonable size. Our aim here is to have it fade to black on the right (so that we can build our HTML later with greater ease). Additionally we don’t want it to long vertically either so it’s best to erase a little of the excess. To do this grab an paint brush and painting in black just remove the bottom parts.

Note that it’s best to get a brush that has some texture so it’s not obvious that we erased parts. If you scroll down your brush list, there is a brush that comes with Photoshop that looks like the one shown. It’s not a bad brush to use. Of course you might have some even nicer paint brushes and feel free to use those.

When you’re done fill in any areas on the right and bottom with black so that the whole canvas is covered by this layer.

Step 4

Now decrease the opacity of the watercolour layer to about 70% and set its blend mode to Overlay. That way some of the colouring passes through to create a nicer look.

Step 5

Now in a new layer above the watercolour layer, draw a Linear Gradient going from black to transparency straight up, so that afterwards your canvas basically fades to black down the bottom.

Step 6

Next in two new layers draw a couple of Radial Gradients from white to transparency, one larger than the other. Set these to Overlay and 40% and 100% opacities for the larger and smaller ones respectively.

Basically you should be making a highlight on our image to give it a bit more texture.

Step 7

So here’s the finished background. It’s dark, abstract and quite elegant with the colouring. Of course pink might not be your particular choice of colour usually, and if that’s the case, feel free to add a colour adjustment layer on top and use it to adjust the colouring. I kinda like the pink/purple, so am going to run with it!

Step 8

Now we create a new layer and add a “logo”. I don’t really have a purpose with this design so I decided just to put some text in and pretend that’s my logo. Because this tutorial is half PSDTUTS and then half NETTUTS, I wrote out a neat little “psd vs net”.

The fonts I’m using here is Egyptian505 BT Bold and Egyptian505 LT BT Light (the lighter version of the font is what I’ve used for the ‘vs’).

To make the ‘vs’ bit raise up a little you can use the baseline control in the Character Palette (shown in the second image below).

Finally I also added a little layer style to the text with a faint Gradient Overlay as shown and a 1px Inner Glow with White.

Step 9

Now at this point I switched on my Rulers (CTRL-R) and drew a couple of guides. I divided my page into three columns with lines at 50px, 320px, 610px, 900px. At least those are the numbers I should have used, looking at my screenshot I just realised my third line is off … d’oh!

Anyways the point is that I’m defining the space I’ll be placing all me elements in, and if I were to make multiple pages I could use this grid in different ways. As it is with only the homepage being designed I’m just going to use those three columns once - a little later on.

Step 10

OK so now we draw in our first black box. With your rulers and guides still on, create a new layer and draw a Rectangular Marquee (M) going from one side to the other, fill it with black. Then set this layer to 80% opacity, right click the layer and choose Blending Options, then click on Stroke and add a 1px white stroke on the Outside and set to Overlay. This will give us a really cool border that will make the box look much sharper.

Step 11

Now duplicate the box layer, and using CTRL-T, transform the box so that it’s the same width but much shorter (as shown below). This will be our navigation box.

Change the Opacity to 40% and the Fill to 50%. This will make our box much fainter and give some depth to the two boxes, making one seem more important and imposing than the other.

This sort of contrast between the two boxes is a great way of setting visual precedence between elements. When the user comes to the page we want them to see our big message first, and then the navigation bar. By having it faded out we tell the user that the less prominent one is to be looked at second.

Step 12

OK now we add some text. Again I’ve used Egyptian Light here for the big headline copy (that will be an image in the final HTML) and Arial for the menu items (that will be HTML text links).

Now a word on typography. This design relies heavily on the fact that we’ve used a simple, clean typeface. Having the text nice and large makes it appear very bold, but at the same time because it’s a very thin typeface, it comes out looking elegant.

If you’re looking for a high-end design look, thin, classic typefaces are hard to beat. When I first discovered Helvetica Ultralight, I remember I went crazy designing all these designs that looked really minimal and up market.

Additionally, this particular font Egyptian - has a very sharp, slab serif, combined with a sort of squarishness that makes it look quite cool (I think).

There are plenty of other awesome fonts you could use. As a general rule though, you want something more classic looking. Or in other words unless you know what you’re doing, you’d want to stay away from really weird looking fonts - e.g. something that looks very futuristic. Actually as a good, general rule, unless you’re super confident, it tends to be better to veer towards more ordinary fonts.

Another type of typeface that would work really well here is something that is a a bit technology looking like this font that Chris Garrett Media uses. I have no idea what font that is, or what that type of font is called, but it’s pretty neat. Maybe a kind typophile might illuminate us in the comments

Step 13

Anyhow after seeing Chris Garrett Media’s site, I decided it would be pretty cool to add a gradient overlay to my type and give it a bit of a shine. So as you can see below here we’re adding a Gradient Overlay from black to white, faded out a bit and on Overlay mode.

Step 14

Now we can draw an additional big black box for the content area. Actually you can just duplicate the earlier layer and transform it again.

And that gets us to the point shown in the image below. Looking pretty cool!!

Step 15

Now we add a bit of dummy content in the content box. Here I’ve again used Arial for most of the text, but for the headings rather than use Egyptian, I’ve gone with Georgia. Georgia is not quite as elegant, but is a standard font which means I can make these headings in plain old HTML instead of relying on images (or Flash).

Actually with Windows Vista’s release there is also another semi-standard font that would work well here called Cambria. But Cambria has some weird rendering problems in Firefox on Macs at certain sizes, so we’ll stick with good ol’ Georgia for the moment.

Step 16

Finally I created a new layer at the bottom, filled it with a dark purplish colour, added a 1px border to the top and voila we have a footer.

Ready for Building

Finally I created a new layer at the bottom, filled it with a dark purplish colour, added a 1px border to the top and voila we have a footer.

Alternate Background 1

Now one of the cool things about this design is we can easily swap the background and the design still looks awesome. Here’s I’ve swapped it for an image from iStockPhoto called Passion, with a similar colour scheme. It’s a very cool 3d rendering of light, and like our current background is also abstract and visually beautiful.

Alternate Background / Colours 2

Here I’ve used another abstract image from iStockPhoto called Blue Energy. Because the colour has changed I’ve also gone through and amended the colours in a few places - particularly of the text - and also added a big glow to the main copy.

Why it Works

Now it’s unlikely you’re ever going to have need of this exact design - now that I’ve written a whole tutorial on it. So let’s talk a little about why it works well, because that will help you use the principles to create your own, unique look.

There are several things that come together to make a design that works here:

1. First I’ve picked really stunning backgrounds. The ones from iStock and the one from GoMedia would make nice images all by themselves. They are interesting to look at, but they don’t fight for dominance. They also all fade out really easily. Photos that fade out easily are always easier to work with.
2. Great images are the perfect partner for simple and clean typography. Because the images are so lovely, you don’t need to do overdo it with the typography. It can just be clean, clear and organised.
3. Another factor that goes into making this work, is that there is plenty of space. With a complicated background it would be easy to wind up looking cluttered. So it’s important to make sure there is plenty of space between things, and inside the boxes and so on. Space also is a great way of making a design look more high end. Nothing screams low-end like clutter.

Of course there’s plenty more things we could talk about like colour and precedence, but I think the main design things you should be looking at here are the typography in conjunction with the background. As a final statement to that end, here is a little image that says it all

Now the HTML/CSS

Now enough of this nambi-pambi photoshop stuff, let’s go do some HTML/CSS! Follow on to the second part of this tutorial where we build our design into a working website over at NETTUTS - Web Development Tutorials!

TAKEN FROM psdtuts.com

When you mention patterned/tiled backgrounds, people immediately think of horrid MySpace pages and web designs circa-1990’s. It is therefore a worthy achievement when an artist is able to use this technique to make a website look stunning and attractive. An effective background design pattern can leave a memorable and positive feeling on the people who view these works of art.

by Ben Ostrowsky

Here I’ve compiled 20 beautiful and artistic websites that use tiled patterns to set their webpage apart from the ordinary.

1) Enlighten Designs

2) DNA

3) Sideshow

4) We Do The Web

5) Impressive Work

6) Hotel Belwether

7) David Loop

Olly Hite

9) OnTrack

10) Elitist Snob

11) Imagined Creative

12) THE SIDES

13) Tanya Merone

14) kesone.de

15) Jen Gordon

16) Viget Labs

17) variable.nz

18) Robert Beerworth Blog Australia

19) MAKAO

20) Saint Augustine Bed and Breakfast

These are all designs I feel have truly achieved a unique look by using a background pattern instead of going the safe route with a solid color.

Do you have any other websites to add to the list? Did I miss a website that belongs here? Be sure to leave the links on your comments.

Special Thanks & taken from sixrevisions.com

In this article, I’ve pieced together 30 excellent CSS techniques and examples that showcases the capabilities and robustness of CSS. You’ll see a variety of techniques such as image galleries, drop shadows, scalable buttons, menus, and more - all using only CSS and HTML.

Clicking on the title will direct you to the documentation/tutorial, while clicking on the accompanying image will direct you to the demo page if it’s separate from the documentation.

1. Hoverbox Image Gallery

A pure css-based gallery; hovering over an image enlarges it.

2. Advanced CSS Menu

A creative and complex navigation scheme.

3. Sliding Photograph Galleries

An accordion effect; hovering over an image expands it.

4. Lightbox Slides

Part of an article entitled “Supercharge your image borders” showcasing how you can use CSS styles to make images look more interesting.

5. Drop shadow on an image

Aan image effect demo and discussion based on a A List Apart article entitled, “CSS Drop shadows“.

6. Cross Browser Multi-Page Photograph Gallery

Hovering over the tabs changes the category, while hovering over an image enlarges it.

7. CSS Photo Zoom

Uses a single image and adjustment of the background-position attribute.

8. CSS gallery layout—smells like a table

Mimics a table layout, but uses lists. The gallery is also fluid width.

9. Sticky Footer

A static footer with very little XHTML required.

10. whatever: hover

A navigation menu that mimics Window’s Start menu.

11. CSS-Only Accordion Effect

An accordion effect using div’s and :hover; the accordion effect can be vertical or horizontal.

12. Scalable CSS Buttons Using PNG and Background Colors

A technique that addresses vertical scaling, the use of many images, and lack of a hover effect.

13. Pushbutton Links

links that are styled to look like buttons without using images.

14. Scrollable Table with Fixed Header

The table’s captions stay put which is excellent for long tables.

15. Content Overlay with CSS

When you hover over the image, the container div is shown with more text.

16. A CSS styled table version 2

A beautifully styled, table with semantic mark-up - uses a background image.

17. PNG Overlay

Another way to add flare to images (rounds the corners and adds a border and drop shadow).

18. Showing Hyperlink Cues with CSS

Simple tutorial on adding icons to different types of links.

19. Simple Rounded Corner CSS Boxes

Uses only one image and very few lines of code and mark-up.

20. Sitemap Celebration

Tree-like navigation using nested lists, great for sitemap pages.

21. Easy cross-browser transparency

Opacity technique without the use of JavaScript (but at the cost of using non-valid XHTML code).

22. Curved corners 2

Fluid width and height divs with rounded corners.

23. Creating a graph using percentage background images

List items <li> styled into bar graphs.

24. CSS Bar Graphs: Examples

3 bar graph examples - “Basic CSS Bar Graph”, “Complex CSS Bar Graph”, and “Vertical CSS Bar Graph” using div’s and definition list tags.

25. Animated Rollover Arrow

The arrow follows along the entire width of the navigation bar smoothly, without the use of JavaScript or animated gif’s.

26. A CSS-based Form Template

Showcases an accessible web form.

27. CSS Image Text Wrap

Using empty spacer div’s, the page’s text mimics a wrapping effect around the background image.

28. Before your very eyes - a fade-in image

A demo using opacity and a single image that gradually fades in to cover the text.

29. Pure CSS Pop-ups

A pop-up technique that works even in IE 5 Mac.

30. CSS Gradient Text Effect

Uses background image overlays, and empty span tag, and position: absolute to create a gradient effect on text.

Special Thanks & taken from http://sixrevisions.com

The Crystal Project, has more than 1300 icons in six different sizes, divided into the following categories: Actions, Apps, Files Systems, Devices and Mime Types. You can just download and use them free of cost but dont forget to read the license to use them.

The Crystal Project icons are presented in PNG, the standard file format for icons on Linux. The files can be opened in any image editing software and converted to any other file format required.

Taken From http://www.smashingapps.com/

Flickr, Yahoo’s photo sharing service, has rolled out a new website dedicated to Flickr’s popular API tools. The new site, Code.Flickr, offers developers a place to review API information, discuss tools in the forums and of course rant about the future of Flickr development.

There’s also a new development blog and a public SVN repository for Flickr’s open source efforts, like the cross-platform Uploadr tool which is built on Mozilla’s XULRunner.

To date the Flickr API offers 109 methods for developers looking to build tools based on the photo sharing site. And build they have; there are thousands of Flickr tools out there, offering everything from simple widgets to embed photos on your blog, to full-fledge desktop editing and uploading apps.

It would nice if Code.Flickr offered some way to search through all the various applications and API tools, but, at least for now, that’s not part of the site (there’s still the featured section on the main Flickr Services page, which offers links to the more popular third-party apps).

However, even if it’s missing a third-party tool search, the Code.Flickr still has plenty of juicy info for aspiring Flickr API developers. If you’ve been having trouble with Flickr’s API, the company says that the new development blog will be offering tutorials on the various API methods. If there’s a particular area that confuses you, post your request in this thread so the development bloggers can help you out.

The new Flickr Code site is a great resource for developers and it provides a nice single source for anyone looking to get started using the API.

[via the Flickr Blog]
Special thanks to wired.com

Since we are moving towards 2006 I thought of compiling a list with the best tutorials (imho) of 2005. Of course I haven’t read all of the tutorials written this year, but believe me I have read a large percentage of them. So here we go in no particular order.


3D Lava Text from Tutorialwiz. Category: Text effects
An amazing effect of text emerging from a blazing lava inferno!

Expanding Header from Swedesignz. Category: Web graphics
Learn how to create a header that auto stretches to the browser’s width.

Advanced Pattern Overlay from PixelAddiction. Category: Photo Editing.
Learn how to replicate this awesome technique.

Blog Design from PhotoshopSupport. Category: Web design
Excellent tips for blog design.

Photo restoration from PictureCorrect. Category: Photo retouching
A nice tutorial that is going to help you learn how to restore old photos.

Color Black & White images in Photoshop from 7Designs. Category: Photo Editing
A nice tutorial that is going to show you How to Color Black & White images in Photoshop.

The Wave from R-Klein-Webdesign. Category: Drawing
Learn how to create this awesome effect!

Hosting Layout from Zymic. Category: Web Layouts.
Massive tutorial that will show you how to create a web hosting layout!

Anime eyes drawing from Biorust. Category: Drawing
Great tutorial that will help you learn how to draw anime eyes.

Animated Background Zoom from Kazaru. Category Animation.
Learn how to create an animated background zoom effect with this tutorial!

That’s all, just keep in mind that this is just a subjective list.

Taken from http://pstutorialsblog.com/

Picture by: destinetics
Here’s a collection of 115 social bookmark and news sites ranked by PageRank, number of links and value of each site.

We used dnScoop to gather the data for all these sites. This is what the dnScoop data is based on:

Page Rank- Google PageRank

Inbound Links- The total number of pages that contain links to www.sitename.com

Site Value Report - This value is calculated based on several factors shown above, including: Links, Traffic (Alexa), age of the domain, site category, domain keyword popularity, and overall occurrences of the domain name on the web.

The list was based on this social bookmarking list . We added a few more sites, such as, Shoutwire.com, Plime.com and PixelGroovy.com.

The dollar value of the sites are a bit misleading (is Simpy.com really worth $302,332,960 more than Digg?), but this list should hopefully provide you with some data on social news and bookmark that you haven’t seen before. If anybody knows of any better online tools to roughly estimate the value a site then leave a link in the comments section and we’ll update this list over the next few weeks and compare the data.

Site	PR	Inbound Links	$ Value
www.slashdot.org	9	28,018,962	$25,787,200
del.icio.us	8	370,943,962	$521,172,000
www.technorati.com	8	148,233,993	$276,243,000
www.digg.com	8	137,000,000	$215,992,000
www.reddit.com	8	132,924,191	$178,934,400
www.stumbleupon.com	8	59,888,074	$39,723,400
www.connotea.org	8	3,272,642	$11,241,440
www.furl.net	7	99,028,154	$188,853,100
www.newsvine.com	7	49,881,588	$35,890,400
www.blinklist.com	7	47,039,214	N/A
www.folkd.com	7	13,766,114	N/A
www.squidoo.com	7	7,171,958	$13,336,150
www.citeulike.org	7	3,694,298	$11,226,880
www.kinja.com	7	2,593,905	$9,965,880
www.propeller.com	7	2,503,342	$13,613,600
www.spurl.net	6	34,419,253	$32,200,000
www.simpy.com	6	23,405,771	$518,324,960
www.mister-wong.com	6	9,672,510	$10,667,840
www.rawsugar.com	6	7,481,362	$14,925,880
www.diigo.com	6	6,095,828	$11,243,680
www.linkagogo.com	6	3,987,085	N/A
www.corank.com	6	1,536,589	$4,281,340
www.care2.com/news	6	808,351	$2,237,900
www.backflip.com	6	733,144	$2,463,550
www.spotback.com	6	315,219	$459,980
www.kaboodle.com	6	309,115	$3,691,950
www.shoutwire.com	6	284,654	$216,910
www.sphinn.com	6	270,738	$100,000
www.searchles.com	6	261,216	$197,160
www.bibsonomy.org	6	141,521	$2,305,350
www.clipclip.org	6	59,146	$75,210
www.sitebar.org	6	15,661	$245,204
www.taggly.com	5	998,006	N/A
www.buddymarks.com	5	890,014	$3,090,150
www.mylinkvault.com	5	559,084	N/A
www.stylehive.com	5	547,675	$1,377,760
www.hyperlinkomatic.com	5	505,338	$1,457,890
www.plime.com	5	448,091	$474,360,000
www.lilisto.com	5	363,661	$529,000
www.sk-rt.com	5	322,076	$442,900
www.markaboo.com	5	238,271	$227,900
www.xilinus.com	5	57,701	$38,160
www.startaid.com	5	49,341	N/A
www.uvouch.com	5	34,057	$424,020,140
www.thoof.com	5	30,719	$20,600
www.myhq.com	5	27,015	$29,536
www.mybookmarks.com	5	25,443	$29,468
www.hanzoweb.com	5	12,618	$17,222
www.favoor.com	5	11,756	$6,322
www.socialdanger.com	5	7,095	$1,600
www.murl.com	5	6,017	$8,236
www.mobleo.net	5	739	$1,039
www.plugim.com	4	588,860	$1,313,340
www.zurpy.com	4	192,408	$111,180
www.tagfacts.com	4	169,135	$120,772
www.oyax.com	4	112,111	$115,000
www.lifelogger.com	4	99,808	$107,744
www.complore.com	4	93,751	$74,200
www.connectedy.com	4	59,588	N/A
www.sitejot.com	4	55,414	N/A
www.pixelgroovy.com	4	41,778	$19,080
www.cloudytags.com	4	41,654	$29,664
www.blurpalicious.com	4	27,567	$12,900
www.dropjack.com	4	27,251	$13,100
www.bookmark-manager.com	4	18,872	$7,434
www.myvmarks.com	4	17,084	$6,650
www.contentpop.com	4	13,188	$16,274
www.bmaccess.net	4	11,959	$5,600
www.memfrag.com	4	10,564	$5,668
www.bookmarktracker.com	4	10,518	$8,618
www.mysitevote.com	4	9,218	$6,500
www.freelink.org	4	8,427	N/A
www.urlex.info	4	3,962	$2,507
www.rambhai.com	4	2,926	N/A
www.easybm.com	4	2,236	N/A
www.zlitt.com	4	2,236	$3,193
www.chipmark.com	4	2,196	$1,792
www.thinkpocket.com	4	1,914	$848
www.mywebdesktop.net	4	1,329	$368
www.philoi.com	4	1,097	$1,397
www.bookkit.com	4	1,049	N/A
www.bookmax.net	4	874	N/A
www.votelists.com	4	399	$339
www.whitelinks.com	4	269	N/A
www.tedigo.net	4	135	$458
www.mixx.com	3	559,683	$1,854,160
www.marktd.com	3	43,855	$56,180
www.tagza.com	3	35,627	$7,500
www.wirefan.com	3	17,204	$27,772
www.blogbookmark.com	3	11,934	$11,124
www.bukmark.net	3	8,545	$1,620
www.getboo.com	3	7,742	$42,728
www.fungow.com	3	4,553	N/A
www.syncone.net	3	4,026	$25,070
www.linksnarf.com	3	3,893	$1,120
www.ez4u.net	3	1,030	N/A
www.listerlister.com	3	633	$5,702
www.xlmark.com	2	15,012	$5,974
www.totalpad.com	2	4,693	$510
www.barksbookmarks.com	2	2,786	$11,766
www.memotoo.com	2	2,382	N/A
www.blipoo.com	2	598	$100
www.bookmarkall.com	2	371	$694
www.yattle.com	2	127	$1,081
www.wetogether.info	1	911	$515
www.vuju.com	1	284	$145
www.newsweight.com	1	67	$42
www.voteboat.com	1	41	$10
www.freezilla.co.uk	1	38