Modern Navigation

Average: 4.4 (97 votes)
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In this gimp tutorial i will show you how to Create a cool modern website Navigation, this navigation works well with both dark and light backgrounds see examples at the end of this tutorial.

I made the width under 500px so it fits inside gimp-tutorials.net site, but if you look at the end of this tutorial there is a link showing how the site would look like on a wider 800px website.

Lets get started

Step 1

Create a new image 500x100.

Step 2

From the tool box select the "Rectangle select tool" and draw a 490X50 rectangle

Step 3

Now will want to create a rounded corner around our selecting, you can do that by right clicking and then under "Select>Rounded rectangle", in the dialog enter the value 50 and press ok.

Step 4

If you entered the 50 value right correctly you should have a rounded cornered selection like mine.

Step 5

Now Create a new layer name it "Base" and from the Tool box Grab the "Bucket fill Tool" and fill the Selection with the colour cdd0d4 which is a dark Gray.

Step 6

Will want to repeat what we did in the previous steps but with a slight difference in the hight of the rectangle, grab the "Rectangle Selection tool" from the tool box and draw a 490X48 Rectangle, and like the first one will want it rounded so right click then click on "Select>Rounded Selection" enter the same value as before which was 50 then press ok.

Step 7

This time will fill using the "Blend Tool", first create a new layer and name it "Base2", Change the Foreground color to 4f4f51 and the background color to9fa0a4, make sure in the "Tool options" that the Gradient is on FG to BG (RGB), and the shape to "Linear",now apply it from bottom to top its essential that the position is the same as mine,so make sure you pay attention to the image below.

If you position you blend tool right you should have the same results as mine

Step 8

Right click on the base layer then click on "alpha to selection". once you have the selection around the base layer right click again in the image area and then click on "select>Shrink" in the dialog enter 2px.

If you followed through right you should have a nice small rounded selection like< mine.

Step 9

Create a new layer name it "Base3", and Once again grab the "Blend tool" change the foreground color to a4a5a6 and the background color to c1c4c8, now apply it from top to lower bottom, check the image for the position.

This is how it should look

Step 10

Grab the "Rectangle Selection" and draw a 482x39 at the lower part of the navigation.

Step 11

Right click on the layer and go to "Select>Rounded rectangle", in the dialog enter the value 50 and press ok.

Step 12

Create a new layer name it "Base4", Grab the "Blend Tool" Change your foreground color to a3a6a9 and background color to eff0f1and apply it as i did in the image below. fill the background canvas with 16181c.

you might not get it right on your first try so try a few times till its like mine.

Step 13

Create another new layer name it "Divider", grab the Rectangle selection and draw a 2x45 rectangle, this will be the divider between the text, use the "pencil tool" to color in the left side with the color 838387 and e8e9ea for the right.

Step 14

Now Duplicate the divider 5 times and space them out as shown in the image.

Step 15

Now to add a drop shadow, Right click on the the layer we named "Base", right click to "Alpah to Selection", then go to "Filters>Light and Shadows>Drop Shadow" and enter "0 for Offset X" and "3 for Offset Y", "3 for Blur Radius" and finally 80 for opacity.

Step 16

Finally the text. i used the font "Marlett" in case you don't have it,the font "Sans" would just do fine, the color of the text that i used is 666666.

That's it! here is the finished results with all the text filled in.

I used a dark background in this tutorial but this navigation even better on a white as well as you can see below.

I created a narrow navigation for this tutorial so it fits the width of gimp-tutorials.net but here is rough mock up how it would look inside a website layout.

Enjoy!

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Visitor's picture

Modern Navigation

Re: Step 9:

Qouted

"Step 9 now right click click on "select>Shrink" enter the value of 50 then press ok." 

I think you meant "select>rounded rectangle" wit value 50? am i correct? 

Gimper's picture

Re: Modern Navigation

your correct,i've fixed it now. thanks for letting me know :)

Visitor's picture

Re: Modern Navigation

Excellent love the effect !!

Photoshop Brushes's picture

Re: Modern Navigation

i used this style on my qbrushes site. :) thanks

Slightslinger's picture

Re: Modern Navigation

Good tutorial all around thanks.

P.S. It say "Not to add a drop shadow", I think you mean Now to add a drop shadow.

tempe's picture

Re: Modern Navigation

excuse me for noob question...

good tutorial... on save, i got .png.map file.
How can i put this .map on my blog?

thank you

phani's picture

thanks,today i learned new

thanks,today i learned new lesson

t2t's picture

thanx... that was good, did

thanx... that was good, did anyone do code on this one?????

t2t

charly's picture

Hi thanks for this post, I'm

Hi thanks for this post,
I'm trying to build my menu bar with this but for some reasons, it doesn't work for me, can somebody help me on this? I'm using Gimp 2.4.6, (I don't believe it has anything to do with gimp but who knows). thanks for any help

Timothy Harden's picture

great tutorial, this really

5

great tutorial, this really helped my website "pop" a little bit more.

Visitor's picture

Very nicely done, great

Very nicely done, great inspiration.

The whole site is full of very useful tips and tricks.

I have been switching to GIMP for 2 days now from Paint Shop Pro.I refuse to use Photoshop because I think its too expensive, not that that would be a problem on today's internet, but if you want to make professional designs you shouldnt be caught using illegal software. You have proven GIMP to be a worthy alternative.

Thanks
Cris - Tekne turu

Visitor's picture

How would you get the html

How would you get the html code in gimp and how can you make the links work in myspace...like for example if I wanted to post something like this on the about me section...how could I get the links working???

samanen's picture

Hmm, cool, but how to use

Hmm, cool, but how to use this as a website navigation bar? :-O

Visitor's picture

I don´t know if it´s possible

5

I don´t know if it´s possible to make this a working navigation bar directly in GIMP, but it´s pretty easy to do in HTML. The easiest way is probably to make an image map (in HTML) of the whole menu bar. You can also split it up in separate button images (with GIMP) and link the images separately.

Tiffany's picture

Wonderful tutorial. Thanks a

Wonderful tutorial. Thanks a lot. My nav bar now looks very professional. :) I'm glad I came across this site. And thanks to above poster for the image map suggestion.

vijaydude's picture

nice job, but i don't like

3

nice job, but i don't like this style

Visitor's picture

how did you take a screenshot

how did you take a screenshot with your cursor in the picture?

Visitor's picture

i'm sure keyboard has a key

i'm sure keyboard has a key to take screeshots of the desktop

Visitor's picture

It looks nicer without first

It looks nicer without first and last divider.

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