Create a Clean and Professional Web Design in Photoshop

Feb 17 2010 by Waheed Akhtar | 105 Comments | Stumble Bookmark

In this Photoshop web design tutorial we are going to design a smashing, clean, and professional website layout in Photoshop. The layout we are doing in this tutorial can be used as personal or corporate website design. Update: This is the first part of a two-part series that will teach you how to create the layout in Photoshop, and then how to convert it to a standards-compliant (X)HTML web design.

The "Clean and Professional Web Design" Series

Part 1: Create a Clean and Professional Web Design in Photoshop Part 2: Coding a Clean and Professional Web Design

Final Preview
Have a look at the layout that well be creating in this tutorial. You can see the final preview of the image below or click here for a full size version.

Prepare your Photoshop document

1 Create a new document in Photoshop (Ctrl/Cmd + N) using the settings from the following image.

Set the units and rulers settings

2 Make sure that you are working in pixel units, which is the standard fixed unit for web design. Set up the following settings for your Rulers from the Preferences dialog window (Ctrl/Cmd + K); click on Units & Rulers and ensure that you have everything set as shown in the figure below.

Add guides to designate the content area

3 Activate Photoshop Rulers from View > Rulers. Toggle the visibility of the rulers by pressing "Ctrl/Cmd + R". Also open the Info panel from Window > Info (shortcut key: F8). The Info panel gives useful information depending on the selected tool. By pressing "M", choose the Rectangular Marquee Tool and create a box that is 120px wide from the left corner of the canvas. You can adjust the size by looking into the Info panel while

making the selection. Now click on the left ruler and drag a guide to the right of the marquee selection as shown in the image below.

4 Move this selection on the right edge of the canvas. Assign another guide to the left side of the selection. Your canvas now should look like this:

Creating the logo

5 Now we are going to create the logo for our website. The logo is going to be very simple and it will have a color gradient effect. Create a new group (Layer > New > Group) and name it "logo". 6 Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and type "SMASHING" (or the name of your website) in capital letters. 7 Then in the Character panel, set the font to Arial, the style to Bold and the size to 42pt. Also set the anti-aliasing method option to Sharp and use the color #101112. You can also set these options in the Options bar when the Type Tool is the active tool.

8 Double-click to open the Layer Style dialog box. Select Gradient Overlay, click the Gradient Editor and use the settings as shown below.

9 Put the "SMASHING" type layer at the distance of 35px from top and 0px from left guide. You can do this accurately using the Move Tool (V) and your arrow keys. Duplicate this type layer (Layer > Duplicate Layer). Move the duplicated layer right next to the "SMASHING" word and edit the text to "Dzine". Repeat Steps 6, 7, 8 but use different gradient colors (Left color stop: #b27625, Right color stop: #e5ad27) for the word "Dzine". 10 Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and add a tag line under the logo with following settings.

11 The final logo should look like the image below. To activate/deactivate the guides, go to View > Show > Grid or use the shortcut Ctrl/Cmd + ;

Creating the navigation bar

12 Create a new group and name it "navigation", it should be above "logo" group. Drag a guide from the top ruler, 150px below the top edge of the canvas. Select the Rectangle Tool (U) and draw a horizontal line of 4px height with a color of #e3ab27, across the canvas. 13 Add navigation links at 12px-high from this horizontal line and 20px to the right of the left guide. Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) and draw a box with the size of 72px by 35px. Move this layer below the text links and name the layer "hover". Straighten the bottom rounded corners with the Convert Point Tool. Move the sides of uneven edges below with an 8px margin to make the edges equal to other inner edges at bottom. Double-click the "hover" layer to open the Layer Style dialog box and add gradient colors (Left color stop: #e5ad27, Right color stop: #b27625). Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T), select the text, "Home" and change color to #ffffff (white).

Creating the "call us" section

14 Next we are going to create the "call us" section at the top-right of our design (exactly opposite side of the logo). Download this phone icon and place this near the right guide. Name this layer "phone icon". Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T). Add a phone number on the left of the phone icon using the font Arial, with the size set at 20pt and the color #292929. Add some related text below the phone number using font Arial, set at Bold, with a size of 11pt and a color of #595959.

Creating the header

15 Now we are going to a create the header section. Create a new group and name it "header". 16 Select the Rectangle Tool (U) and create a rectangle shape with the size of 1200px by 440px. Put this rectangle at a distance of 1px below the navigation bar and name this layer "header bg". Double-click the "header bg" layer, select the Gradient Overlay layer style and have these two colors in the Gradient Editor (Left color stop: #2e2226, Right color stop: #7a7556). See the image below for the rectangle position and colors detail.

17 Create another rectangle from the Rectangle Tool (U) with the size of 960px by 360px. Put this rectangle at the distance of 40px from the top of the "header bg" layer and 0px from the left guide. Name this layer "header container". Preview below what we have done until now with the design.

Creating the "featured project" section

18 Next we will create the featured project section. Create a new group inside the header group and name it "fp". Select the Rectangle Tool (U) and create a rectangle with the size of 630px by 340px at the distance of 10px from the top and the left of header container. Give this layer color of #000000 and name it "fp container".

19 Open an image in Photoshop to place here as your featured project. Go to Select > All (Ctrl/Cmd + A), then Edit > Copy (Ctrl/Cmd + C). Come back to the our web design. Create a new layer above the "fp container" layer and go to Edit > Paste (Ctrl/Cmd + V) to paste in your featured project image. Rename this layer to "fp image". Right-click the "fp image" layer and select Create Clipping Mask. Now the image is visible only inside the rectangle ("fp container"). Make adjustments so that your featured project image is similar to the one shown below.

20 Go to Edit > Transform > Scale (Ctrl/Cmd + T). From the Options bar, click in the rotation box and type -4 and press enter twice to adjust the angle. Stay on the same layer ("fp image"), and select Luminosity as the blending mode of this layer.

21 Next we are going to create the title and description bar for the featured project image. Select the Rectangle Tool (U) and create a rectangle shape with the size of 630px by 90px using color #161718. Change opacity of this layer to 90% and name it "title bg". Place this rectangle as shown in the image below.

22 Create another rectangle with the size of 630px by 1px using color #9c9c9c and name it "title horizontal line". Place this rectangle on the top edge of the contents of the "title bg" layer. 23 Add a title and description inside the rectangle we created in Step 21, using the following settings for title and description. For the title:

font: Arial, color: #ffffff, size: 25pt and anti-aliasing method option: Sharp

For the description:

font: Arial, color: #a4a4a4, size: 12pt and anti-aliasing method option: None

Coding a Clean and Professional Web Design

Mar 29 2010 by Waheed Akhtar | 98 Comments | Stumble Bookmark

In this web development tutorial, you will learn how to code a web page template from a Photoshop mock-up from a previous tutorial called "Create a Clean and Professional Web Design in Photoshop" using HTML/CSS. This is the second part of a two-part series that will teach you how to create the layout in Photoshop, and then how to convert it to a standards-compliant (X)HTML web design.

The "Clean and Professional Web Design" Series

Part 1: Create a Clean and Professional Web Design in Photoshop Part 2: Coding a Clean and Professional Web Design

Final Result
Click on the preview below to see the live demo of the web design that youll be creating in this tutorial.

Download
You will need the Photoshop (PSD file) of Part 1 of this tutorial, download it from that tutorial. Also you can download all files including the examples used in this tutorial from the link below if you want to study it offline (or use it in a project).

clean-professional-website.zip (ZIP, 74.8 KB)

Introduction
In this tutorial, well create a fixed-width web layout using some basic coding techniques. We will go through step-by-step from the top to bottom. So this means that we will start

from the the header, then content, and then the footer section. Preview the examples when they are available to make sure that you are following along.

Setting up the file structure

1 Create a folder in your computer for the tutorial files and name the folder cleanprofessional-website. This will be our working folder. 2 Inside this folder, create the following:

images folder will contain all images used in the tutorial. index.html our site template. css folder will contain our stylesheet called styles.css

3 Open index.html and styles.css in your favorite text editor. Also, open the PSD file in Photoshop; its inside the clean-professional-weblayout zip file from Part 1. 4 Our file structure is set up now and we are ready to go. 5 Open the Photoshop file. Open the Info panel from Window > Info (shortcut key: F8). The Info panel gives useful information depending on the selected tool. Choose the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and set the options as shown below. After the options are set, click on the top left of the canvas (next to the logo) to make a selection.

6 Use Edit > Copy Merged (Ctrl + Shift + C) to copy the selected area. Create a new document and paste (Ctrl + V) the copied selection into the new document. Save the file for the web, File > Save for Web (Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S) as bg_body.jpg in the images folder. Use the same settings for saving all the files so that there is no issues with how they are rendered on a web page. I used the JPEG Very High preset but feel free to change these settings (you can probably get away with just JPEG High or PNG-8 to keep your web page CSS backgrounds as lightweight as possible). If you change the default settings, be sure to save it the same way every time to provide consistency in the images.

Setting up the HTML and CSS files

7 Move to index.html. The first thing we want to do is reference style.css and in the <head> of our HTML document.
<head> <link href="css/styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head>

8 Open styles.css and add some basic style rules. Were going to take a shortcut here and use the Universal Selector margin/padding CSS reset to zero out all the elements margins and paddings. This works the majority of the time, but its better to invest some

time learning about more robust CSS Reset techniques which you can find here: Resetting Your Styles with CSS Reset. 9 Here is the style rule declaration for resetting the margins and paddings:
/* CSS Reset */ * { margin: 0; padding: 0; }

Implementing the background

10 Were going to implement the background we created (body_bg.jpg), tiling it horizontally (repeat-x). Were going to set it as the <body> background. We also define the default font-family that we are going to use in this website.
body { background: #fff url(images/body_bg.jpg) repeat-x 0 0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; }

Lets preview how the background looks. In Example 1 below, you can see how background is implemented. Example 1: See the background in action.

Setting up the layouts container div

11 Lets move into some HTML. Well contain our layout in a 960px-wide container div called #container.
<body> <div id="container"> <!-- content goes here --> </div> </body>

12 Since our content area is 960px, well give #container a width of 960px and add a padding of 10px on the right and left. This will give us sufficient room on either side of the layout for scroll bars so that when the user minimizes the web browser, theres still a bit of padding on the left and right and our content is not right at the edges of the view port (making the content hard to read). Center it using the margin attribute.
#container { width: 960px; margin: 0 auto; padding: 0 10px; }

Creating the logo

13 Lets slice up the other stuff, starting with the logo. Head over to the Photoshop file. Create a selection around the logo that is exactly 360px and 115px wide using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) as shown in the image below. Use Photoshop Guides (View > Show > Guides) to make this easier. 14 Copy Merge (Shift + Ctrl + C) and then paste the logo in a new document. Note: Its not necessary to draw a selection with the Fixed Size option from the Style option. Select Normal as the Style option and drag around the target to have a similar selection as below.

15 Save the file for the web, File > Save for Web (Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S) as logo.jpg in the images folder.

Creating the phone icon

16 Create a selection around the phone icon that is exactly 47px and 47px wide using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) as shown in the image below. Copy Merge (Shift + Ctrl + C) and then paste it into a new document.

17 Save the file for the web, File > Save for Web (Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S) as phone_icon.jpg in the images folder.

Coding the Headers HTML markup

18 Lets get back to our HTML/CSS. First, well start with the markup. Inside the #container div, we use another div to create our header section well call it #header. 19 For the logo, well use an <h1> element. To make the logo clickable, we will need an <a> element inside the <h1> element to be a block element, and give it the same width and height as its parent <h1>. Also we add another div which is named #phone positioned below our <h1> element. This will hold the phone icon in the background with the phone number and text beside them. Lets see how the markup will look like:
<div id="container"> <div id="header"> <h1><a href="#">Smashing Dzine</a></h1> <div id="phone"> <p>+971 55 7457383</p> <h6>If you have any query, feel free to call us</h6> </div> </div> </div>

Styling the logo

20 First, lets style #header. We are going to set the position property to relative for #header so the phone iconwhich will be absolute-positionedpositions itself relative to the #header. Also give it a width of 960px or 100%. I am using 100% here.
#header { position:relative; width: 100%; }

21 We will work on the logo style first. We transform our <h1> element into a block element. Float it to the left. We use the logo we created earlier in Step 15 as the background, and finally indent the text to the left where it cant be seen to hide our text. This method of replacing text with a background image is called CSS Background Image Replacement.
#header h1 { display:block; float:left; width:360px; height:115px; background:url(../images/logo.jpg) no-repeat 0 0; text-indent:-9999px; }

22 To make the logo clickable, we also need the <a> element inside the <h1> element to be a block element, and give it the same width and height as <h1>.
#header h1 a { display: block; height: 100%; width: 100%; }

Styling the phone section

23 We will use the phone icon (phone_icon.jpg) we created in Step 17 as the background for #phone. Position it absolutely as mentioned before in Step 20. Well add paddings 5px from top and 50px from right, so the text inside #phone is aligned properly with the icon on the left.
#header #phone { background: url(../images/phone_icon.jpg) no-repeat right 0px; height: 47px; position: absolute; top: 41px; right: 0; text-align: right; padding: 5px 50px 0 0; }

24 Add the font size for <p> and <h6> elements.

#header #phone p { font-size: 20px; } #header #phone h6 { font-size: 11px; }

Preview your work in a web browser. Check out Example 2 below to see where we are now. Example 2: Our header section which includes the logo and phone section is completed.

Creating the navigation menu

25 Move back to Photoshop file. Expand the navigation layer group if its not already expanded. Hide the navigation text. Select the hover layer and with the Direct Selection Tool (A), drag the right anchor points of the the path to the right as shown in the image below. (We will use this image for our navigation hover). Tip: After selecting anchor points with the Direct Selection Tool, hold down Shift and move it to the right with your Right Arrow key. This will move anchor points 10px to the right.

26 Just like with the logo, create a selection exactly 203px by 35px. Copy Merge (Shift + Ctrl + C) and then paste the hover background in a new document.

27 Save the file for the web, File > Save for Web (Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S) as hover.jpg in our images folder.

Coding the Navigation Markup

28 We will add another div where #header ends and name it #nav. Our navigation will be a standard unordered list item. Each list items <a> element will contain a <span> element because of our rounded corners (youll see why in just a bit). Also the first list item (Home) will have a class of active to show the page name that the user is currently one.
<div id="nav"> <ul> <li class="active"><a href="#"><span>Home</span></a></li> <li><a href="#"><span>About SmashingDzine</span></a></li> <li><a href="#"><span>Our Services</span></a></li> <li><a href="#"><span>Our Portfolio</span></a></li> <li><a href="#"><span>Blog</span></a></li> <li><a href="#"><span>Contact Us</span></a></li> </ul> </div>

Styling the navigation menu

29 First we will clear the floated elements we have before #nav and set height and width of the #nav div.
#nav { clear: both; height: 35px; width: 100%; }

30 We will float <ul> element to the left so that it remains with the flow our our web page.
#nav ul { float: left; }

31 For the list items, well make them into block elements, then float them to the left so that they display side by side. Well also add 1px padding to list items at their right.
#nav ul li { display: block; float: left; height: 35px; list-style-type: none; padding: 0 1px 0 0; }

32 The image (hover.jpg) we created in a preceeding step will be used as the background for the <a> elements with x-position:left and also for <span> element with x-position: right. Well set text-transform to uppercase so that it is all in capital letters.
#nav ul li a { color: #3f3f3f; display: block; text-decoration: none; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; text-transform: uppercase; height: 100%; line-height: 35px; padding: 0 0 0 18px; } #nav li a span { display: block float: left; height: 100%; padding: 0 18px 0 0; }

33 Finally, for the hover and active states, we adjust the background property. This will show the "hover.jpg" when you hover on a menu item.

#nav li a:hover, #nav li.active a { background: url(../images/hover.jpg) no-repeat left; color: #fff; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none; }

34 Here the <span> element shows the background image from the right side.
#nav li.active a span, #nav li a:hover span { background: url(../images/hover.jpg) no-repeat right; }

Preview your work in a web browser. Check out Example 3 below to see where we are. Hover over the menu items to see how our primary navigation works. Example 3: Our navigation section is completed.

Creating the Featured section

35 Lets call the big image and Quick Quote form area as our "Featured" section.

36 Go to our Photoshop file and browse to the header layer group and then to the fp layer group. Ctrl + Click on the vector mask thumbnail (as shown below). You will get a selection around the big image.

37 Copy Merge (Shift + Ctrl + C) and then paste the image in a new document.

38 Save the file for the web, File > Save for Web (Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S) as fp-01.jpg in images folder. 39 Next well create the Quick Quote form background. With the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), make a selection of 1px width and 340px height as shown below.

40 Copy Merge (Shift + Ctrl + C) and then paste the image in a new document. Save the file for the web, File > Save for Web (Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S) as form_bg.jpg in the images folder. 41 Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) again and make a selection around the submit button as shown below.

42 Copy Merge (Shift + Ctrl + C) and then paste the image in a new document. Save the file for the web, File > Save for Web (Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S) as submit_btn.jpg inside the images folder.

Coding the Featured section

43 Well create another div called #featured under our #nav div. This will contain the featured image on the left. You might decide that this image should be a slideshow, and if thats the case, you can check out the tutorial "Create a Slick and Accessible Slideshow Using jQuery". Note: We are displaying the Featured image as an unordered list item, making it easy for anybody who wants to convert this section into an image slideshow later on. Well name our single <li> element as "ss1". 44 Featured section also contains the Quick Quote form on the right. This form will hold a title using an <h2> element, a <label> element for each <input> text element and lastly, an <input> element with type property set to image for the button. Well use "submit_btn.jpg" as the src for the image button and name it as .btn. Heres the markup:
<div id="featured"> <ul>

<li class="ss1"><a href="">Heading for Project</a></li> </ul> <form id="quote" action="#" method="post"> <h2>Quick Quote</h2> <fieldset> <label>Your Full Name:</label> <input type="text" name="Full Name" /> <label>Your Email:</label> <input type="text" name="Email" /> <label>What Are You Looking For:</label> <textarea cols="35" rows="2"></textarea> <input class="btn" type="image" src="images/submit_btn.jpg"/> </fieldset> </form> </div>

Styling the Featured section

45 Lets style the #featured div first. Adding a top margin of 45px will center the #featured container vertically to the brown color gradient background. Also add a padding of 10px so the inner content doesnt stick to the borders of featured container.
#featured { margin: 45px 0 0; background: #fff; padding: 10px; height: 340px; width: 940px; }

46 Set the float to left for the unordered list.

#featured ul { float: left; }

47 We will convert the list item into a block element and float it to the left as well. Then we set the width to 630px.
#featured ul li { float: left; list-style-type: none; display: block; width: 630px; }

48 Then, just like the logo, we will display the <a> element as a block element and use text-indent to hide the text.
#featured ul li a { display: block; height: 340px;

text-indent: -9999px;

49 Add "fp-01.jpg" as a background image for the list item.

#featured ul li.ss1 { background: url(../images/fp-01.jpg) no-repeat; }

This is how it should look like in your browser.

50 Next we will style our <form> element. Add the "form_bg.jpg" background we created some steps back and float it to the right.
form#quote { background: url(../images/form_bg.jpg) repeat-x; margin: 0px; padding: 20px; float: right; width: 260px; height: 300px; }

51 Style the <h2> element in the form. Add a bottom margin of 18px.
form#quote h2 { font: normal 24px "Trebuchet MS", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #fff; text-decoration: none; margin-bottom: 18px; }

52 Well make the <label> element into block elements and float them to the left. Set their width to 100%.
form#quote label { font-weight: bold; color: #fff; font-size: 12px; display: block; float: left; width: 100%; }

53 Next well style our <input> and <textarea> elements. Well add height to the <textarea> element separately so that it doesnt affect our <input> elements. We will also use some CSS3 properties here for rounded corners.
form#quote input, form#quote textarea { background-color: #fff; border:1px solid #ddd; color: #666; float: left; font: 12px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0 8px; padding: 8px; width: 240px; -webkit-border-radius: 3px; -moz-border-radius: 3px; } form#quote textarea { height: 45px; }

54 Lastly for our form, we will add the following CSS attributes for the image button named .btn. Well hide the border by giving the border property a value of none.
form#quote input.btn { width: auto; border: none; padding: 0; margin-top: 0; }

You can find a big list of CSS Rounded Corners Tutorials here if you want to learn more about this in detail. CSS3 properties used here are not supported in Internet Explorer, but still, it looks decent in Internet Explorer. See the difference below between Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The Featured section is completed. Checkout the Example 4 below to see how it looks like in your browser. Example 4: Our featured section is completed.

Creating the Content Section

55 Get back to Photoshop and with the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), make a selection of 1px by 173px as shown below.

56 Copy Merge (Shift + Ctrl + C) and then paste the image in a new document. Save the file for the web, File > Save for Web (Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S) as col_bg.jpg in our images folder.

Coding the Content Section

57 We will move to our Content section now. Create a div and name it #content. This will hold our content. Inside this div, well create three boxes with a class of .col. We will double declare the class property of the 2nd box with .noMargin and triple declare the class property of the 3rd box with .noMargin and .fr. To be on the safer side in different browsers and at different resolutions. At the end we add an empty div with a class of .clear that will clear all floats. We will remove the margin of 2nd and 3rd box by adding .noMargin class to them and float the 3rd box to the right by adding .fr class to it.
<div id="content"> <div class="col"> <h2>About <span>SmashingDzine</span></h2> <img src="images/about_smashing_dzine.jpg" Dzine" /> <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur [...]</p> <a href="#" class="readmore">Read More</a> </div> <div class="col noMargin"> <h2>Our <span>Services</span></h2> <img src="images/about_smashing_dzine.jpg" Dzine" /> <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur [...]</p> <a href="#" class="readmore">Read More</a> </div> <div class="col noMargin fr"> <h2>Our <span>Portfolio</span></h2> <img src="images/about_smashing_dzine.jpg" Dzine" /> <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur <a href="#" class="readmore">Read More</a> </div> </div> <div class="clear"></div>

alt="About Smashing adipiscing elit.

alt="About Smashing adipiscing elit.

alt="About Smashing adipiscing [...]</p>

Styling the Content section

58 First we set the atrribute of clear:both for the #content div so all floated elements before this div gets cleared. Then add 80px of top margin. We float the .col divs to the left so that they are displayed next to each other. Set the "col_bg.jpg" as the background image for .col div. Add a 1px border and 20px of padding. .noMargin will have 0px margin and .fr is set to float right. 59 Well set the <h2> elements bottom margin so that it looks just like the mock-up. Style the image by adding a border and a padding of 2px. Well also style the <a> element named as .readmore.
#content {

margin: 80px 0 0; clear: both; font-size: 12px; color: #767676; } #content .col { float: left; width: 258px; background: url(../images/col_bg.jpg) repeat-x; height: 153px; border: 1px solid #CCC; padding: 20px; margin-right: 30px; } #content .col h2 { font: normal 24px "Trebuchet MS", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #b47825;text-decoration: none; margin-bottom: 18px; } #content .col h2 span { color: #2f2f2f; } #content .col img { border: solid 1px #d8d8d8; padding: 2px; float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; } #content .col p { margin-bottom: 20px; line-height: 17px; } #content .col a.readmore { font-weight: bold; color: #252525; text-decoration: underline; } #content .col a:hover.readmore { text-decoration: none; } #content .col.noMargin { margin: 0; } #content .col.fr { margin: 0; float: right; } .clear { clear: both; }

60 Preview your work in your web browser. It should look like Example 5. Example 5: Content section is completed.

Creating the Footer

61 Again we will go back to Photoshop and cut images out as required for our footer. With the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M), select the footer area as shown in the image below.

62 Copy Merge (Shift + Ctrl + C) and then paste the image in a new document. Save the file for the web, File > Save for Web (Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S) as footer_bg.jpg in our images folder. 63 Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) again and make a selection around the Subscribe button as shown below.

64 Copy Merge (Shift + Ctrl + C) and then paste the image in a new document. Save the file for the web, File > Save for Web (Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S) as subscribe_btn.jpg in our images folder.

Coding the Footer

65 To show the footer background with 100% width, well create a div outside the #container div and call it #footer. Inside #footer, well create another div and name it #footerContainer. We will be using one <p> element for footer links. We can also use footer links as standard unordered list items. There is a newsletter section as well in the footer which well wrap with a <form> element named #newsletter. The form will contain a label, input fields and an image button.
<div id="footer"> <div id="footerContainer"> <p>Copyright &copy; 2010 SmashingDzine | <a href="#">Privacy Policy</a></p> <p> <a href="#">Home</a> / <a href="#">About SmashingDzine</a> / <a href="#">Our Services</a> / <a href="#">Portfolio</a> / <a href="#">Blog</a> / <a href="#">Contact Us</a> </p> <form id="newsletter" action="#" method="post"> <label>Enter your email to subscribe for RSS Updates</label> <input type="text" class="textBox" />

<input class="btn" type="image" src="images/subscribe_btn.jpg"/> </form> </div> </div>

Styling the Footer

66 Well add clear:both to our #footer div to clear any floating elements. Add footer_bg.jpg to the background of this div and a width attribute of 100%.
#footer { clear: both; background: url(../images/footer_bg.jpg); height: 100px; width: 100%; margin-top: 40px; }

67 Set #footerContainer as 960px wide to align the content inside of this div with the rest of the page. We give this div a relative position so that we can absolutely-position the newsletter form on the right side.
#footerContainer { margin: 0px auto 0; width: 960px; font-size: 12px; color: #ddd; padding-top: 20px; position: relative; }

68 Add the following properties to the <p> and <a> elements.

#footerContainer p { margin: 8px 0 8px; } #footerContainer a { color: #ddd; text-decoration: none; } #footerContainer a:hover { text-decoration: underline; }

69 Well have #newsletter absolutely positioned on the right and 20px from top. For <input> fields, we will use the same styles we used above for the Quick Quote form input fields and set their width to 190px.
form#newsletter { position: absolute; right: 0; top: 20px;

width: 300px; } form#newsletter label { font-weight: bold; color: #fff; } form#newsletter input { background-color: #fff; border:1px solid #ddd; color: #666; float: left; font: 12px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 5px 0 0; padding: 8px; width: 190px; -webkit-border-radius: 3px; -moz-border-radius: 3px; }

70 And lastly, well hide the border that is around the image button by giving the border attribute a value of none.
form#newsletter input.btn { width: auto; border: none; padding: 0; margin-left: 3px; }

Example 6: Footer completed.

And were all finished!

Congratulations, you have done it! Thank you for sticking through this tutorial I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and learned a few tips and tricks on converting a design mockup to an HTML/CSS template.

Creating the "quick quote" section

24 Create another group inside the header group and name it "quick quote". Select the Rectangle Tool (U) and create a rectangle with the size of 300px by 340px. Place this rectangle at the distance of 10px to the right of the featured project section and name it "qq container". 25 We will copy a Layer Style from another layer we created in a previous step. Go inside the "navigation" group, right-click the "hover" layer, select Copy Layer Style, go back to the "qq container" layer, right-click and select Paste Layer Style. We have the same Layer Style of the "hover" layer for our "qq container" now.

26 Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T). Write "Quick Quote" inside "qq container" at the distance of 20px from the top and left edges of the containing box. Set the font family to Trebuchet MS (or a web-safe font of your preference) with the color of white (#ffffff) and anti-aliasing method option set to Sharp. We are going use the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) to create three form fields. Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) and set the radius to 3px. Then create two rounded rectangles with the size 260px by 35px using the color of white (#ffffff). Then name the shape layers as "field1" and "field2" respectively. Create the third rounded rectangle with the size of 260px by 75px using a white color (#ffffff) and name it "field3". Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and create labels for each form field.

27 Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) and create a box of 80px by 35px and name it "submit btn". 28 Double-click the layer to open the Layer Styles dialog window and tick the Gradient Overlay checkbox from left. Click the Gradient Editor and change colors of the gradient as shown below.

29 Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and type "Submit" using the font Arial, style Bold and size at 13pt. Select both layers in the Layers panel ("submit btn" and "Submit text"). 30 Choose the Move Tool (V) from the Tools panel and click Align vertical centers and Align horizontal centers from the Options bar. (Alternatively, you can get the same result by going to Layer > Align > Vertical Centers and Layer > Align > Horizontal Centers).

Creating the main content area

31 Create a new group and name it "content". Select the Rectangle Tool (U). Create a rectangle of 300px by 175px and name it "c01". Place this layer 30px below the header and 0px from the left guide. Double-click the layer and use the settings from the following image.

32 We are going to add content to this box now. Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and add the text, "About SmashingDzine". Make a selection of the "About" word using the Horizontal Type Tool (T), and then change its color to #b47825. Then make a selection of the "Smashing" word, and then change the color to #2f2f2f. Add a little description and a link text beneath the title. The following options were used for the title, description and link text. (You can adjust these options as needed).

For the Title:

Font: Trebuchet MS, style: Normal, size: 24pt, anti-aliasing method: Sharp

For the Description:

Font: Arial, style: Normal, size: 12pt, anti-aliasing method: None, color: #767676

For the Link text:

Font: Arial, style: Bold, size: 13pt, anti-aliasing method: None, color: #252525, Underline

33 We will add a square box next to the description now. Select the Rectangle Tool (U) and color #ffffff, hold down the Shift key to maintain the proportions and create a square with the size 88px by 88px. Move this square at a distance of 10px from the left of rectangle ("c01"). Name this layer "border". Double-click the layer to open the Layer Style dialog window, and add a Stroke layer style with the following settings:

34 Create another box with the size of 82px by 82px and place it in the center of the "border" layer. Name this layer "box" and change the color of this square to #d5d5d5. Select all layers in this group ("content" group), go to Layer > New > Group from Layers (Ctrl/Cmd + G) and rename this new group "about".

Note: The inside grey square box is a place holder for an image and can be replaced with any image of your choosing. 35 Duplicate the "about" group (Right-click on the group and select Duplicate Group) and name it "services". Right-click on the "services" group and select Duplicate Group again and name it "portfolio". We have three groups now ("about", "services", and "portfolio"). Move the last group ("portfolio") to the right guide as shown below.

36 Select all three groups in the Layers panel, and then go to Layer > Distribute > Horizontal Centers to space them out equally. Click here to see the full size image of the following image.

37 Change the titles for the "services" group (center) and "portfolio" group (right) as shown below. (You can change these titles according to your requirement.)

Creating the footer

38 Create a new group and name it "footer". Select the Rectangle Tool (U) and create a rectangle with the size of of 1200px by 100px at the bottom of our design layout. Name this layer "footer bg". Use the same Gradient Overlay style as the "header bg" layer by right-clicking the "header bg" layer and choosing Copy Layer Style. Go back to the footer group, right-click the "footer bg" layer and select Paste Layer Style.

39Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and add copyright text and footer links text on the left using the font Arial, size of 12pt and a grey color (#dddddd).

40 We are going to add the email subscription section on the right. Create a new group inside the "footer" group and name it "subscribe". Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) and create a rectangle of 85px by 35px. Name this layer "subscribe btn". 41 Repeat Step 26 for adding the form fields and labels. 42 Select the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and type "Subscribe" using the font Arial, style set to Bold and size at 13pt. Select both layers ("subscribe btn" and "Subscribe text"). 43 Repeat Step 28 for creating the subscribe button. 44 Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) and set the radius to 3px. Create a rounded rectangle with the size 210px by 35px using a white color (#ffffff) and name this shape layer as "email field". Add a text line above "email field".

Final Result
OK, thats it and we are done. Here is the final result. Click on the image below to see the full size layout. Thanks for following along with my tutorial. I hope you all enjoyed and learned something new from this tutorial. Kindly leave your comments below and share your thoughts and opinions, I would love to hear them. You can also share this design tutorial to your friends if you think it could be helpful to them!

Download the source file

You can download the Photoshop file (PSD) of this tutorial from the link below as a ZIP archive.

clean-professional-weblayout (ZIP, 2.4 MB)