Preview:

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 color 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

Not 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.

thats 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.

Enlarge

Enjoy!