Design a Beautiful Website From Scratch

Have you ever wanted to design a beautiful website but just didn’t know how? To be honest, a few years ago, that happened to me too. While browsing the web, I saw so many nice looking websites and wished I had the skills to create such designs. Today I can and I’m going to teach you how to do so too! Essentially, it requires a few Photoshop skills and an eye for detail. Through this tutorial, I will point out these tiny details which make a website design look beautiful. Fire up Photoshop and let’s get going!

Step 1 - Download the 960 Grid System Template

The designs I create are nearly all based on the 960 Grid System. So, before we begin we need to download the grid system Photoshop templates. You can
find them on the 960.gs official website. Simply unpack the zip file and look for PSD templates. You will see that there are
two different types of templates: one is 12_col and the other one is 16_col. The difference between these two are, as the name suggests, one is made with 12 columns and the other one with 16 columns. To explain it a bit more, if you have 3 boxes in your design you would choose the 12_col grid, because 12 is divisable by 3; or if you have 4 boxes in your design, you would choose either 12_col or 16_col grid because 12 and 16 are divisable by 4. If you follow this tutorial, you will see this in action.

Step 2 - Defining the Structure

Before we open our PSD grid template and begin drawing, we first need to define the structure of our site. This is a bit more of a complicated structure because we have a layout inside a layout. You can see this exemplified in the image above.

Step 3

After we’ve defined our site structure we’re ready to move on. Open your 16_col.psd template. Go to Image > Canvas size . Set the canvas to 1200px wide and 1700px high. Set the background color to #ffffff.

Step 4

Now pick the Rectangle Tool and draw in a rectangle the full canvas width and about 80px high. Fill it with the color #dddddd.

Step 5

Create a new layer above the rectangle and set Layer mode to Overlay. Ctrl+click the rectangle layer. Now the rectangle will be selected. Choose a 600px soft brush, set the color to white, and click a few times with the edge of the brush just a bit over the selection, like shown on the image. This way you create a nice, subtle light effect. Additionally you can link these two layers.

Step 6

New layer. Choose the Rectangle tool again and draw in a thin dark grey rectangle, as shown in the image.

Step 7

With the Rectangle tool selected, draw in a big box around 500px underneath the top rectangle. Make it 575px high and give it a Linear Gradient overlay from #d2d2d0 to #ffffff, direction -90, Scale 100%.

Step 8

Now we are going to create the same light effect as described in Step 5. We will be using this technique a lot; so next time I will just refer you to Step 5 for the effect.

Create a new layer above all the current layers. Ctrl+click the big rectangle. Choose a 600px soft brush, set the color to white, and click a few times with the edge of the brush just a bit over the selection, as shown in the image.

Step 9

Create a new layer and draw in a big rectangle about 400px high. This one is used for our header. Fill it with a nice blue gradient from #2787b7 to #258fcd.

See how subtle the color change is?

Step 10

Add a dark blue 1px line on the bottom of the header box, apply the Drop shadow effect. For drop shadow use Blend mode: Multiply, Opacity: 65%, Angle: -90, Distance: 1px and Size: 6px. Next, create a new layer above and draw another 1px white line under the dark blue one. This way we create sharp edges for our content box. Basically you can apply this border technique on every box in your design just with different colors.

Step 11

Create a new layer, and with the Rectangle Tool, draw a 50px high rectangle in the top part of the canvas, just as shown in the image. This will be used for our navigation.

Apply a Drop shadow. Use the values shown in the image.

Step 12

Time for the navigation. Use the Rounded Rectangle Tool and set the radius to 5px. Draw a rectangle, fill it with #f6a836, and apply the following effects:

• Inner Shadow – color: #ffffff, Blend mode: overlay, Opacity: 60%, Angle: 120*, Distance: 7px, Size: 6px.
• Inner glow – Blend mode: normal, color: #ffffff, Size: 4px. Everything else leave default.
• Stroke – Size: 1px, Position: inside, color: #ce7e01.

Now select the rectangle with Ctrl+click. Go to Select > Modify > Contract and enter 1px.

Create a new layer above, set the Blend mode to Overlay and create the same effect described in the Step 5 using a smaller brush size this time. Then add the navigation text. I used Arial for navigation links, all caps and Antialias set to “none”.

Step 13

Now let’s create the search box. With the Rounded Rectangle Tool, radius 5px, create a search box positioned on the right side of the grid layout and in the middle of the top gray stripe from Step 4. Add these layer styles:

• Inner Shadow – color: #000000, Blend mode: Multiply, Opacity: 9%, Angle: 90*, Distance: 0px, Size: 6px.
• Stroke – Size: 1px, Position: inside, color: #dfdfdf.

I added the “search” text and a light gray “GO” button. This is how it should look.

So far we have a lot of layers and need to organize things a bit so we will create a new Layer folder and name it “search”. Select all layers that make the search field and just Click + drag inside the new folder. Later we’re going to organize other content inside the folders so we have a nice organized layer palette.

Step 14

Now create a new layer and draw a “Sign Up” button the same way we created the search field – just half the width. Place it under the search field in the middle of the navigation stripe.

Again we’re creating the effect from Step 5.

Use a smaller soft brush size. In this case it was 45px.

Step 15

After adding the logo and the Tagline this is how our site should look like now.

Step 16

Now we’re coming back to our layer organization mentioned a few steps earlier. Create a new empty layer folder and name it “top_bar”. Move all graphics from the top of the layout inside this folder (logo, tagline, search field, sign up button, navigation and backgrounds).

Create another empty layer folder and name it “header”. This is where we will put our header graphics. This is how it should look.

Step 17

Our header looks a bit plain right now so we’re going to add the same light effect everywhere else on the site. Select the header box (blue). Create a new empty layer above and set the mode to Overlay.

Pick a large soft brush 600px, color #ffffff and click a few times in the area under the navigation. Furthermore, to gain more depth, we can switch the color to black and do the same thing just in the bottom part of the header. Give it a try!

Step 18

In this step I will explain to you how I created the reflection for the header images. Take two images of your choice, I used Safari screenshots of my two other templates, scale one down and place it behind the bigger one. Copy both layers, and with the Free Transform Tool, flip the first image and then the other one. Shift both images a few pixels down. Now make a selection from outside the bottom part to middle of the first flipped image with the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Go to Select > Modify > Feather and type 30px or more. You should have a selection similar to the shown in the image. Press the delete key a few times and you will create a nice faded reflection from the original image. Repeat this step for the second image.

Now to make those two images stand out a bit, create a new layer and set the mode to Overlay. Create the effect described in Step 5.

This is how our header should look after adding a nice tagline and some buttons. Don’t forget to put all these graphics inside the “header” layer

folder to keep things organized here ;)

Step 19

If you look at the final image preview, you can see that we have nice tabs in the content area. In order to create these tabs we’ll need to perform a few extra steps, but it’s definitely worth it. First, create a large rectangle shape with the Rounded Rectangle Tool. Make it 70px high and a radius of 10px or more if you wish. Now we have to get rid of the bottom radius and make a perfect corner out of it. Pick the Direct Selection Tool and click on the shape path. Click the vertical point and drag it down while holding the Shift key until it reaches the same level with the horizontal axis. So far so good but it’s still deformed. You see the little handle. Click on it and move it upwards to the point of the path.

Now we have created a perfect corner. This is how it should look. Repeat this step for the right bottom corner.

Step 20

Pick the Line tool and set it to 1px.

Step 21

Draw in gray separators while holding the Shift key.

Step 22

Place some icons, headings, and a description for each tab. I used Ray Cheung icons available from – WebAppers.com. Usually one tab is always active and the others are inactive. To make this clear in our
design, we need to find a way to accomplish this. I desaturated the other icons and reduced the opacity for the headings and text while keeping the first active tab colorful and bright.

Step 23

To make the active tab more obvious, we’re going to give it a faded white background. To do this first select the whole object and then subtract from the selection to get only the first tab selected.

This is what your selection should look like.

With a smaller soft brush, paint in a white background.

Step 24

Add the shadow. Create a dark gray rectangle behind the tabs, as shown in the image.

Add a vector mask by clicking the little icon in the bottom of the layer palette.

Set the color to black, pick a large soft brush, and start deleting parts of the rectangle. As a result, we get a nice fake shadow effect behind our tabs.

Finaly the attention to detail. Draw in a 1px gray line on the bottom of the tabs. Mask the layer again like described earlier and with a big soft brush delete the left and right end of the line. Now we get a nicely faded line that follows our shadow behind the tabs.

This is how our tabs should look.

Step 25

It’s time to design the content for our first tab. We need a featured design image, a nice heading and some text. First we
will create the featured image. I thought that it would be nice to break the edginess of the design by creating a nice stacked photos effect for our
featured design image. To do this, draw a white rectangle with a 1px light gray border, and a very subtle drop shadow effect.

Now copy that layer and rotate it slightly with the Free Transform Tool. Do this one more time.

Import your featured image and place it over the white rectangles. Don’t worry if the image is flowing outside the boxes, we will fix that. Make a selection from the top rectangle, go to Select > Modify > Contract and insert 5px. With the featured image layer selected click the Quick Mask icon on the bottom of our layer palette. You will get nicely bordered image effect like shown in the image here.

This is how your layer order should look like.

Step 26

Don’t forget to keep things organized. So create more layer folders and organize your palette. This is how I have done it.

By adding a nice heading, some text, and bullet lists, our web design work is finished. Let’s move on.

And again some layer organization.

Step 27: Testimonials

I thought this one should be huge; so I’ve put this in a big box right after the main section. First draw a big light gray rectangle about 220px high. Give it a 1px gray border.

Then draw in another brighter rectangle by 10px smaller on all sides. Also add a 1px light gray border.

Finally add some text and we’re done!

Step 28

It’s time for the footer. Draw a big 400px high, dark gray rectangle.

Step 29

Add some light effect the same way as described in Step 5.

Step 30

Next, draw a 10px high rectangle above the footer and add some subtle effect by adding two more lines on top and bottom like shown in the image.

Step 31

Create the very bottom part where the repeated navigation will be placed. You can copy the rectangle from the top where the navigation is
placed, move it down and make it about 40px high. Place it at the very bottom of your canvas. Please note that you may need to expand your canvas at this point so that all your graphics fit. If you need to do that, then go to Image > Canvas size and set the height to fit the entire layout.

Step 32

Attention to detail again. Add a 1px white line above the footer navigation box to give it a nice border effect.

Step 33

Add some footer content and separate it nicely within your grid.

Step 34

Finally organize all your layers inside the layer folders. This is how I’ve done it.

The Design

So there we go, the final design, with a couple of variations for different pages. The final PSD designs are, of course, on sale at ThemeForest.net.

Final Thoughts

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and have learned a few new techniques. Now, it’s your turn to create more great designs. Remember, with attention to detail you, will be able to design beautiful websites with just two or three Photoshop tools. What do you think?

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