Step 1

Let’s start with creating a butterfly wing. Open up a new document and select the Polygon Tool, and use it to create a triangle. Apply the settings you see below. I usually use simple shapes and then transform them into complex ones; you can also use the Pen Tool (P) for creating the shape of the wing.

Step 2

Start the transformation. Convert the corner anchor points to smooth and add new smooth anchor points; deform the shape using the Direct Selection Tool (A). This is how we create the top shape of the butterfly wing.

Step 3

Create the lower part of the wing using the same technique.

Step 4

Use the Pen Tool (P) to create the shape you see in the picture below.

Fill it with light-blue. The colors will be adjusted later on. Copy and Paste in Front the blue shape. Select the blue and light-blue copies, then click Intersect in the Pathfinder palette. Then press Expand.

Keeping it selected, click on the button Divide in the Pathfinder palette. Ungroup all the objects.

Step 5

As the result of these actions we have a lot of redundant objects.

In order to delete them, lock the sub layer with blue and light-blue shape, then use use the Selection Tool (V) select to all the redundant objects, and press the Delete key.

Step 6

The light blue shape has a lot of anchor points. If you want to reduce their amount go to Object > Path > Simplify, and apply the settings you see below.

This procedure is not necessary to conduct. I just do not like it when there are a lot of unnecessary objects in the project. Are you doing well? There is an easier way: if the light-blue shape is open, just click on the button Divide from the Pathfinder palette and there will be no need to do all the further actions.

Step 7

Fill the upper shape with a linear gradient that starts from light green to green, as shown on the picture below.

Step 8

Fill the lower shape with a linear gradient that starts with a light blue and goes to blue as shown.

Step 9

Copy the lower shape and Paste in Front. Fill the shape with a solid light blue color. Now change the Blending Mode and Opacity from the Transparency palette as shown below.

Step 10

Let’s create the darkening on the top of the butterfly wing. Use the Pen Tool (P) to create the shape shown below. Copy and Paste in Front the light blue shape. Now select this copy and the newly created shape, then click on Intersect from the Pathfinder palette. Then press Expand.

Step 11

Use the Mesh Tool (U) to create the gradient mesh shown below.

Select the upper points of the Mesh using the Direct Selection Tool (A) and change their color to blue. And following is the secret of success. In order to reach the liquid transition of colors, make the lower points of the mesh white. The idea is that a white color during the converting of the Blending Mode from Normal to Multiply turns into transparent. Select the whole shape by using the Selection Tool (V) and set the Blending Mode and Opacity as shown.

Step 12

Now create a few more shades of blue color on the wing. Use the previously described techniques.

Step 13

Use the Ellipse Tool (L) to create a few concentric ellipses.

Add a few more ellipses of varying transparency on the wing.

Step 14

Now let’s create the shading of the green color on the left and bottom part of the wing. Use the technique described in the previous steps.

Step 15

Start creating the veins on the wing. Open up the Brushes box: Window > Brushes and go to Open Brush library > Artistic > Artistic Ink and select Tapered Stroke. Apply a green color for the stroke and create the veins using the Pen Tool (P). Apply the settings you see below.

Step 16

Create a wavy image in the lower part of the wing. Select the Pen Tool (P) and create a wavy shape of a green color. Using Intersect from the Pathfinder to cut it out in the shape of a wing.

Step 17

Now change the settings of the Blending Mode and Opacity from the Transparency palette as shown.

Step 18

Copy the created shape and Paste it in Front. Then move it a little bit down using the Selection Tool (V). Cut out the copy in the shape of a wing.

Step 19

Create the highlights on the wings. Select the Pen Tool (P) and create the shapes with black fills that have no stroke. Such elements have to show the structure of the wing.

Step 20

Select each object and create the Gradient Mesh for it using the appropriate tool. Gradient Mesh has to be as simple as possible – put the point on one of the sides of the selected shape. If the Gradient Mesh is not as desired, one can undo the previous actions by pressing keys Command + Z.

Change it into a green color near the vein points and leave the rest black. Now select all the objects with the Gradient Mesh and set up the Blending Mode and Opacity as shown.

Step 21

Now create the liquid transition of the color in the lower corner of the wing. Use the technique described above, but now instead of the Gradient Mesh use the radial gradient starting with green to white.

Step 22

Create the lower part of the wing applying the achieved knowledge.

Step 23

Make up a pattern on the lower part of the wing as shown in Step 13. Fill the ellipses with different colors, change the Blending Mode – have fun experimenting.

Step 24

The wing is finished. Let’s create another one. Select all the objects of the wing using the Selection Tool (V) or Lasso Tool (Q) and go to Object > Transform > Reflect… Apply the settings you see below.

Step 25

Move the copy of the wing to the left using the Selection Tool (V) while pressing the Shift key to constrain the movement.

Step 26

Create the body of the butterfly. Use the Ellipse Tool (L) to create a brown ellipse without stroke. Add the anchor points using the Direct Selection Tool (A).

Step 27

Select the body of the butterfly and create the Gradient Mesh using the Mesh Tool (U). Choose the points on Gradient Mesh and change the colors into different shades of the brown color from the Swatches box, starting with dark on the edges to light towards the center. This is how the volume effect is achieved.

Step 28

Put the stripes on the body of the butterfly using the Pen Tool (P).

Step 29

Fill the stripes with black and white linear gradients and change the Blending Mode and Opacity from the Transparency palette. Apply the settings you see below.

Step 30

Select the Pen Tool (P) and draw the upper part of the body of the butterfly.

Step 31

Now create the shade from the upper part on the lower part of the body. Use the Pen Tool (P) to draw the shape of the shade. Select the lower part of the body and go to Object > Path > Offset Path, and apply the settings you see below.

Step 32

Select the shape of the shade and the created Path and click on Intersect in the Pathfinder palette. Then press Expand.

Step 33

Fill the shape of the shade with a black to white linear gradient and change the Blending Mode and Opacity from the Transparency palette. Apply the settings you see below.

Step 34

Select the upper part of the body and go to Object > Create Gradient Mesh as shown below.

Step 35

Paint the upper part like the lower one, but I made the left lower point light green – that is the reflected light of the wing.

Step 36

Create the eyes of the butterfly. Use the Ellipse Tool to create the dark-brown circle, while holding the Shift key. Then take the Mesh Tool (U) and create the net as shown. Choose the points and change their color to varying shades of brown.

Step 37

Now create the highlight on the eye with the help of the Pen Tool (P). The stroke weight is 2 pixels. In order to round the edges of the highlighting click on the Round Cap button from stroke palette. Set the Opacity to 55% in the Transparency palette. Group (Command + G) all the eye-elements and double them. Drag the copy to its place as shown. The eyes are ready.

Step 38

Create the antennae with the help of the Pen Tool (P). Use the same brush for the curves as for the veins on the the wings (see Step 15).

Step 39

Keeping the antennae selected go to Object > Expand Appearance and fill them with the linear gradient as shown.

Conclusion

The final image is shown below. Have fun creating your own butterfly. If you want to master this tutorial then be sure to experiment with color. Good luck!

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Final Image Preview

Create a new document (Ctrl+N) in Adobe Photoshop with the size 800px by 1068px (RGB color mode) at a resolution of 300 pixels/inch. Use the Paint Bucket Tool (G) to fill with the next color #4A4B41 the new background layer.

Add some noise on this background layer by applying the next filter: Filter>Noise>Add Noise

We’ve got the next result:

Set Fill to 57% and Blending mode to Hard Light for this layer in Layers panel.

Find a stock photo with a jumping man represented on it, I used this photo from stock.xchng. I would like to thank the author of this photo:

Remove the background using your favorite tools like Pen Tool (P), Magic Wand Tool (W), Magnetic Lasso (L) or even a simple Filter>Extract and insert it on a new layer in our main document.

Choose Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (Ctrl+U) and drag the slider to the left to decrease the Saturation of the color range for layer containing the jumping man.

We’ve got the next result:

Create a new layer and select a Soft Round brush of black color (Opacity 15%)

Use Soft Round brush to dark out the top and bottom parts of the document. Place this layer under the layer containing the jumping man:

Next we’ll make a copy of the layer containing the noise effect:

… and select for it Filter>Blur>Motion blur

We’ve got the next result:

Set Fill to 27% for this layer in Layers panel:

Let’s create a clipping mask to make the content of the layer containing the motion blur effect only visible within the content of the layer containing the darked edges. Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) and click between the last made layer and the layer with the darked edges (on the Layers panel)

We’ve got the nest effect:

Create a new layer and use on it the Lasso Tool (L) to draw a freehand selection border as shown:

Next we have to paint the top edge inside the selection, applying the Soft Round brush of white color. Firstly we need to use a brush of bigger diameter for marking the border

then use Hard Mechanical brush of smaller diameter to paint the edges.

This layer will be placed lower than the layer with the jumping man.

Create a new layer and apply here the same technique to represent the same border for the layer on its bottom part.

This layer will be placed also lower than the man’s layer:

We’ve got the next effect

Create a new layer and apply on it the Spatter brush of black color (Opacity 10%)

to dark out the bottom part of the picture. This layer needs to be placed under the man’s layer:

Click on the same layer on the bottom part of the Layers panel on Add layer mask icon and paint into mask with Hard Mechanical brush of black color to hide smoothly the dark spots.

We’ve got the next effect:

Create a new layer again and select the Spatter brush

Paint with this brush along the layer’s edges. The brush’s color is #FDC689 (Opacity 10%). Place this layer under the layer containing the man.

Let’s create the next new layer and use here the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) to represent the next selection:

Then right mouse click inside the selection and select Transform Selection, inclining it as it is demonstrated below:

Use the Spatter brush inside the selection and paint the top edge with the white color.

We’ve got the next result:

Make a copy of the last made layer with the inclined line and select the Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command to turn over the copy’s layer and place it the same way demonstrated on the next picture. The layer will be situated lower than the man’s layer:

Create a new layer and use here Oil Medium Wet Flow brush to paint the central part of the picture. The brush’s color is #F2DABB (Opacity 29%). This layer will be situated under the layer with the jumping man.

The next Spatter brush will be used for painting the layer’s edges:

We’ve got the next result:

Set the Blending mode for this layer to Vivid Light

On the next new layer we’ll apply the Spatter brush of black color (Opacity 5%) to add a couple of spots on the central part of the picture.

This layer will be situated under the man’s layer:

Create a new layer again and select for it the Soft Round and Hard Mechanical brush of different diameter to represent several scratches. The brush’s color is black (Opacity 5%).

We’ve got the next result:

Next step we’ll download a set of brushes for in Adobe Photoshop, named: Blood_Brushes_by_Zattitud3 and Blood_splatter_brush_by_AnnFrost_stock .

Create a new layer and choose for it the next brush from downloaded set. The brushes’ color is #BF100D. Use here different Opacity for the brushes. This layer needs to be situated under the man’s layer:

We’ve got the next result:

On the next new layer we’ll apply the brushes out of the above mentioned sets to represent several spots of the color #FBC671. Place this layer lower than the jumping man’s layer:

Add the next Drop Shadow settings for the layer by clicking on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel

We’ve got the next effect:

Let’s create the next new layer and use again brushes out of the above mentioned sets. The brushes’ color is #677159

Click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Drop Shadow

We’ve got the next effect:

On the next new layer we’ll apply the brushes out of the next sets: Blood_Brushes_by_Zattitud3 and Blood_splatter_brush_by_AnnFrost_stock. We need them to paint the zone along the man’s body with black color. Choose different Opacity and place this layer also under the man’s one:

Select Create new fill or adjustment layer from bottom part of the Layers panel and click to Curves to adjust the curve shape as shown.

The Adjustment layer will be placed also lower than the layer with the jumping man:

Create a new layer and choose the Hard Mechanical brush to paint accurately the man’s hands and his face.

The brush’s color is #E7BF82

Set Fill to 55% and Blending mode for this layer to Color Burn

Finished!

View full size here.

Download free Layered PSD file.

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Today we are making a jQuery & CSS mosaic gallery. Mosaic, because it will feature an interesting tile transition effect when moving from one slide to another.

Step 1 – XHTML

The mosaic effect of the slideshow is achieved by dividing the original image into smaller parts. These tiles, which contain parts of the image, are sequentially hidden from view, which causes the effect. The markup of the slideshow is pretty straightforward. It consists of the main slideshow container element (#mosaic-slideshow), a left and right arrow for previous and next transition and the mosaic-slide div, which is inserted by jQuery at run-time.

demo.html

<div id="mosaic-slideshow">
	<div class="arrow left"></div>
	<div class="arrow right"></div>

	<div class="mosaic-slide" style="z-index: 10;">

		<!-- The mosaic-slide div and the tiles are generated by jQuery -->
		<div class="tile" style="..."></div>
		<div class="tile" style="..."></div>
		<div class="tile" style="..."></div>
		<div class="tile" style="..."></div>

	</div>
</div>

The div with the mosaic-slide class name is added to the page by jQuery after the transition() JavaScript function is executed (we will come back to this in the third step). Inside it you can see the tile divs. There are a total of 56 such divs, each of which has a 60px by 60px portion of the slide image set as its background.

Mosaic Slideshow

Step 2 – CSS

To make this effect work (and most importantly look good), we have to add a few lines of CSS. Only the code directly used by the gallery is shown here. You can see the code that styles the rest of the demonstration page in styles.css.

styles.css – Part 1

#mosaic-slideshow{
	/* The slideshow container div */
	height:500px;
	margin:0 auto;
	position:relative;
	width:670px;
}

.mosaic-slide{
	/* This class is shared between all the slides */
	left:80px;
	position:absolute;
	top:25px;

	border:10px solid #555;

	/* CSS3 rounded corners */
	-moz-border-radius:20px;
	-webkit-border-radius:20px;
	border-radius:20px;
}

.tile{
	/* The individual tiles */
	height:60px;
	width:60px;
	float:left;
	border:1px solid #555;
	border-width:0 1px 1px 0;
	background-color:#555;
}

The slideshow is contained inside the div with an ID of mosaic-slideshow (or #mosaic-slideshow, if we refer to it in a form of a CSS / jQuery selector).  There can be only one such div in the page, hence the use of an ID attribute.

However there can be more than one mosaic-slide divs in the page. The effect itself is achieved by stacking two slides on top of each other and hiding the tiles of the first one to reveal the ones of the second. This is why we are using a class name instead of an ID.

Some of the more interesting rules presented here are the three CSS3 rules for rounded corners. As the CSS3 standard is still a work in progress, browsers don’t support the regular border-radius property yet (except for the new 10.50 version of Opera), and need vendor-specific prefixes to recognize it. The -moz- prefix is used by Firefox, and -webkit- is used by Safari and Chrome.

styles.css – Part 2

.arrow{
	/* The prev/next arrows */
	width:35px;
	height:70px;
	background:url("img/arrows.png") no-repeat;
	position:absolute;
	cursor:pointer;
	top:50%;
	margin-top:-35px;
}

.arrow.left{
	left:15px;
	background-position:center top;
}

.arrow.left:hover{
	background-position:center -70px;
}

.arrow.right{
	right:15px;
	background-position:center -140px;
}

.arrow.right:hover{
	background-position:center -210px;
}

.clear{
	/* This class clears the floats */
	clear:both;
}

The arrow class is shared by the previous and next arrows. They do need individual styling in addition to this common rule, so we add it after this. We are also using a CSS sprite as the background for the arrow divs. It contains a regular and hover state for both arrows, which spares us from having to use four individual images.

“CSS spriting” is a widespread technique used by web designers. It allows the designer to join multiple smaller images into a single larger one, called a sprite, which is downloaded faster and saves the web server from multiple download requests. After this, the designer can use the CSS background property in conjunction with setting the elements to a fixed size, to show only the part of the sprite image that they need.

Mosaic Slideshow

Step 3 – jQuery

After including the jQuery library to the page, we can move on to creating the script that will make the slideshow tick. To achieve the mosaic effect, the script defines 4 functions:

• transition() – this function makes an animated transition between the currently shown slide, and a new one specified by the id parameter. It works by positioning the new slide we want to show, below the current one, and then hiding the current one one tile at a time;
• generateGrid() – this function is used by transition() to generate a grid of tiles. Each tile contains a part of the slide image as its background;
• next() – detects which the next slide is and runs the transition() function with its index;
• prev() – analogous to next().

script.js – Part 1

/* The slide images are contained in the slides array. */
var slides = new Array('img/slide_1.jpg',
					   'img/slide_2.jpg',
					   'img/slide_3.jpg',
					   'img/slide_4.jpg',
					   'img/slide_5.jpg');

$(document).ready(function(){
	/* This code is executed after the DOM has been completely loaded */

	$('.arrow.left').click(function(){
		prev();

		/* Clearing the autoadvance if we click one of the arrows */
		clearInterval(auto);
	});

	$('.arrow.right').click(function(){
		next();
		clearInterval(auto);
	});

	/* Preloading all the slide images: */

	for(var i=0;i<slides.length;i++)
	{
		(new Image()).src=slides[i];
	}

	/* Showing the first one on page load: */
	transition(1);

	/* Setting auto-advance every 10 seconds */

	var auto;

	auto=setInterval(function(){
		next();
	},10*1000);
});

The $(document).ready() method is executed once the page has finished loading. This will ensure that all the divs and other elements are accessible to the script. Inside it we bind a function for the click event on the previous and next arrows, preload all the images, show the first slide (otherwise the slideshow would be empty) and set up the auto-advance interval.

script.js – Part 2

var current = {};
function transition(id)
{
	/* This function shows the slide specified by the id. */

	if(!slides[id-1]) return false;

	if(current.id)
	{
		/* If the slide we want to show is currently shown: */
		if(current.id == id) return false;

		/* Moving the current slide layer to the top: */
		current.layer.css('z-index',10);

		/* Removing all other slide layers that are positioned below */
		$('.mosaic-slide').not(current.layer).remove();
	}

	/* Creating a new slide and filling it with generateGrid: */
	var newLayer = $('<div class="mosaic-slide">').html(generateGrid({rows:7,cols:8,image:slides[id-1]}));

	/* Moving it behind the current slide: */
	newLayer.css('z-index',1);

	$('#mosaic-slideshow').append(newLayer);

	if(current.layer)
	{
		/* Hiding each tile of the current slide, exposing the new slide: */
		$('.tile',current.layer).each(function(i){
			var tile = $(this);
			setTimeout(function(){
				tile.css('visibility','hidden');
			},i*10);
		})
	}

	/* Adding the current id and newLayer element to the current object: */
	current.id = id;
	current.layer = newLayer;
}

The transition function uses the global current object to store the id of the currently shown slide, and a reference to the current slide div. This is later used to remove leftover slides and prevent a transition from occurring if the same slide as the currently active one is to be shown.

Notice how we use the each method on line 31 to loop through the tiles of the current slide and schedule them to be hidden in i*10 milliseconds in the future. As i is incremented for every tile, this mean that they are hidden 10 milliseconds apart from one another.

Slide Transition

script.js – Part 3

function next()
{
	if(current.id)
	{
		transition(current.id%slides.length+1);
	}
}

function prev()
{
	if(current.id)
	{
		transition((current.id+(slides.length-2))%slides.length+1);
	}

}

/* Width and height of the tiles in pixels: */
var tabwidth=60, tabheight=60;

function generateGrid(param)
{
	/* This function generates the tile grid, with each tile containing a part of the slide image */

	/* Creating an empty jQuery object: */
	var elem = $([]),tmp;

	for(var i=0;i<param.rows;i++)
	{
		for(var j=0;j<param.cols;j++)
		{
			tmp = $('<div>', {
					"class":"tile",
					"css":{
						"background":'#555 url('+param.image+') no-repeat '+(-j*tabwidth)+'px '+(-i*tabheight)+'px'
					}
			});

			/* Adding the tile to the jQuery object: */
			elem = elem.add(tmp);
		}

		/* Adding a clearing element at the end of each line. This will clearly divide the divs into rows: */
		elem = elem.add('<div class="clear"></div>');
	}

	return elem;
}

The parameter passed to generateGrid() is an object containing the rows and the columns we want to be generated, as well as the image to be set as the background of the tiles. While generating the tiles, the background image is offset according to the current position of the tile in the row and in the column. Finally the tile is added to an empty jQuery object which is returned at the end.

With this the mosaic slideshow is complete!

Wrapping it up

Today we created a slideshow with an animated mosaic transition effect. You can modify it to include a different number of rows and columns or change the way slides are changed entirely.

What do you think? How would you use this slideshow?

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Today will show you how to create another eye catching hosting layout. In this tutorial I will use only 2-3 colors, with small variations, and you can use this layout for any internet business you have. of course you need to make small changes.

For start we will need to create a new document. the size is as always 1000×1100 pixels, and I will create this document with a white background.
I will select Rectangle Tool, and I will create two shapes. For the top shape I will use the following color: #393e43, and for the bottom one I will use another color: #373a3e

Then I will create another shapes like in the following image. Please click to see the full size image.

As you can see I have some layer styles applied to the layers:

With custom shape tool, I will add some arrows. And I will add the same layer style as above.

Now I will create a button, with Rounded Rectangle Tool.

For this button I will add the following layer styles.

This is how my button will look like.

I will set my foreground color to #25272a, and I will create two shapes with Rounded Rectangle Tool. please click on the following image to see the full size.

For both shapes I will add the following layer styles.

This is my result

Over the top shape I will add another shapes, and I will use the same layer styles. here I will create the hosting plans. If you have more than three plans you can create more shapes.

With Horizontal Type Tool, I will add some text, and in the same time I will add some images with some servers. please click on the following image to see the full size image.

I have used the following font: Myriad Pro ( italic )
In the middle of the layout I will add a nice image and another text.

My last step is to create a search box, where your customers will be able to search available domain names. I will use the same layer style I have used for the button.

In the footer of the layout, I will add there another shape ( use the same layer styles as above ), and some text. This is my final result. I hope you like it.

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HTML5 isn’t here just yet, but the Working Draft is complete enough for us to play around and get to grips with the exciting new elements we can use in our code. To learn how a few of these elements can be used, let’s put together a simple website for say, a fictional iPhone app.  This tutorial covered the process of building an interface just like the awesome apps from Tapbots, so head over and check it out, then we’ll be ready to build an accompanying website for our PKE Meter application.

View the demo

The PSD concept

First, we’ll need to put together a concept for our app website. Create a new document in Photoshop. I use the dimensions of 1680×1050 to give a typical widescreen monitor resolution to work with.

Fill the background with grey (#252525), then add some subtle texture by heading to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Select the Gaussian and Monochromatic options and set the amount to 1.3%.

Draw a simple app icon with the rounded rectangle, and type out the name of our app in Helvetica Bold.

Double click the layer of each object to add some layer styling. Give each one a Color Overlay of #00ffcc and a soft Outer Glow to create an illuminated appearance.

CMD-Click the layer thumbnail of each object to load the selection, then fill a new layer with a horizontal scan-lines pattern.

Change the blending mode of the scan-lines to Multiply and drop the opacity to around 35%. Add a little logo and the usual highlight to the iPhone icon graphic.

Type out an enticing introduction for the app with the type tool and add the same illuminated layer style. If you haven’t guessed already, the PKE Meter is the tool Egon Spengler uses in Ghostbusters. If Egon was busting ghosts in 2010, there’s no doubt he’d be using his iPhone to track psycho-kinetic energy.

Fill out the design with a description of the app. To give the text a little extra pop, add a black drop shadow.

Take the time to line-up the elements of your design and finish off the description of the app with a list of features.

Download the handy iPhone UI kit from Teehan+Lax and paste in the custom app screenshot in place. Position the iPhone over to the right. Keeping the scale pretty large will help it act as a main focal point for the design and maintain the small details of the app interface.

No iPhone app website would be complete without the ‘Available on the App Store’ badge. Paste in a copy of the badge and add some general styling with a subtle Inner Shadow.

With just some copyright and disclaimer information added to the footer area, the concept is ready to be sliced and exported. Save the logo, the large iPhone graphic, the app store badge and a clipping of the textured background as PNG graphics.

The HTML5 structure

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
	<title>PKE METER app for iPhone</title>
	<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />
</head>
<body>
	<div id="container">

	</div>
</body>
</html>

Next we’ll put together the basics for the HTML index page. The HTML5 doctype is pretty simple indeed. Just add <!DOCTYPE html>. This is followed by some familiar HTML that outlines the <head> and <body>. We’ll add a div with an id of container to enclose all the content in a fixed width.

<header>
	<img src="images/logo.png" alt="PKE Meter" id="logo" />
	<h1>Track ghosts,<br> on your iPhone</h1>
</header>

Now the new HTML5 elements will come into play. The <header> element is used to enclose a group of introductory or navigational aids. The logo and intro title of our design would fit perfectly here. The logo itself is added as an image, and the intro, being the most descriptive element is coded in a <h1>.

<section>
	<p>Follow in the footsteps of Ghostbuster legend Egon Spengler and become a doctor of parapsychology with the PKE METER app for iPhone.</p>

	<h2>Features:</h2>
	<ul>
		<li>Study paranormal activity.</li>
		<li>Track sources of psycho-kinetic energy.</li>
		<li>Measure supernatural energy readings.</li>
	</ul>
</section>

A <section> in HTML5 refers to a grouping of content, so all the information about the app in our design can be enclosed in the section element.

<aside>
	<a href="#"><img src="images/iphone.png" alt="iPhone showcasing a screenshot of the PKE METER app." /></a>
</aside>

An <aside> in HTML5 is pretty similar to a <section> as it also basically a grouping of content, but an aside is used specifically for separate content that has a connection to a nearby section. The large graphic of the iPhone and app screenshot is related to the information that’s within the adjacent <section> element in our design, so it would work well as an aside.

<footer>
	<a href="#" id="app-store">Available on the iPhone app store</a>

	<p><small>&copy; Paranormal Lab of Columbia University.</small></p>
	<p><small>Use of PKE METER for long periods may result in brain cell mutation.</small></p>
</footer>

The <footer> element is another handy structural HTML tag that replaces the old <div id="footer"> method with something more descriptive. Within the footer I’ve used <small> tags to surround the copyright and disclaimer. The <small> element is used to represent small print, and can be used for disclaimers, caveats, legal restrictions and copyrights (not small as in size, as the name suggests.)

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
	<title>PKE METER app for iPhone</title>
	<link href="style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" />
</head>

<body>
	<div id="container">
		<header>
			<img src="images/logo.png" alt="PKE Meter" id="logo" />
			<h1>Track ghosts,<br> on your iPhone</h1>
		</header>

		<section>
			<p>Follow in the footsteps of Ghostbuster legend Egon Spengler and become a doctor of parapsychology with the PKE METER app for iPhone.</p>

			<h2>Features:</h2>
			<ul>
				<li>Study paranormal activity.</li>
				<li>Track sources of psycho-kinetic energy.</li>
				<li>Measure supernatural energy readings.</li>
			</ul>
		</section>

		<aside>
			<a href="#"><img src="images/iphone.png" alt="iPhone showcasing a screenshot of the PKE METER app." /></a>
		</aside>

		<footer>
			<a href="#" id="app-store">Available on the iPhone app store</a>

			<p><small>&copy; Paranormal Lab of Columbia University.</small></p>
			<p><small>Use of PKE METER for long periods may result in brain cell mutation.</small></p>
		</footer>
	</div>
</body>
</html>

So here’s our simple HTML5 page altogether. We’ve only used a couple of the new elements, but that’s all we needed for this particular design. It has however, enabled us to create a really clean markup and has seriously cut down on the number of <div> tags scattered around the HTML, making it much more easy to see where specific sections start and end.

The CSS styling

body, div, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, ul, li, img, header, section, aside, footer, button {
	margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0;
}

body {
	font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif;
	background: #2b2b2b url(images/bg.png);
}

#container {
	width: 960px;
	margin: 0 auto;
	padding: 90px 0 100px 0;
	position: relative;
	overflow: hidden;
}

Now it’s time to get everything styled up according to the visual concept. To begin, the stylesheet is given a quick reset to strip out the browser default styling, the body is given the dark textured background and the containing div is positioned centrally.

header {}
	header img#logo {
		margin: 0 0 50px 0;
	}
	header h1 {
		margin: 0 0 30px 90px;
		font-size: 60px;
		font-weight: normal;
		line-height: 74px;
		color: #00ffcc;
		text-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #00ffcc;
	}

The logo and title can be moved into position by editing their margins, and the text for the intro title can be styled up the match the visual concept by adding the bright green color, and the illuminated effect with the CSS3 text-shadow property.

section {
	margin: 0 15px 30px 0;
	width: 530px;
	float: left;
}
	section p {
		margin: 0 0 30px 90px;
		font-size: 22px;
		line-height: 35px;
		color: #d9d9d9;
		text-shadow: 0px 1px 5px #000;
	}
	section h2 {
		margin: 0 0 10px 90px;
		font-size: 40px;
		font-weight: normal;
		color: #00ffcc;
		text-shadow: 0px 0px 10px #00ffcc;
	}
	section ul {
		margin: 0 0 30px 90px;
		font-size: 22px;
		line-height: 45px;
		color: #d9d9d9;
		text-shadow: 0px 1px 5px #000;
	}

The <section> that contains all the textual information is given a specific width and floated to the left, and all the subsequent content elements such as the header two, paragraphs and unordered list are all given the appropriate font-sizing, margin and coloring to match the PSD concept.

aside {
	position: absolute;
	top: 20px;
	right: 0;
}

The <aside> can then be moved into place with some absolute positioning. This ensures the iPhone graphic appears 20px from the top of the page, relative to the containing div.

footer {
	width: 960px;
	float: left;
	clear: both;
	overflow: hidden;
}
	footer a#app-store {
		display: block;
		width: 198px;
		height: 72px;
		background: url(images/app-store.png);
		text-indent: -9999px;
		margin: 0 0 0 84px;
		float: left;
	}
	footer p {
		float: right;
		clear: right;
		font-size: 16px;
		color: #5a5a5a;
		margin: 10px 0 0 0;
	}

The footer can then be cleared so that it sits underneath the previous content and given an overflow:hidden declaration to clear itself after the floats used on the anchor and paragraphs. Speaking of anchors and paragraphs, these elements are each given moved into place with floats to finish off the CSS.

Previewing the site in Firefox, Chrome and Safari will show the site in all its coded glory. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer doesn’t share support for HTML5, so it needs a little extra work.

<script>
  document.createElement('header');
  document.createElement('footer');
  document.createElement('section');
  document.createElement('aside');
</script>

Because IE doesn’t support HTML5, it just doesn’t recognise those new fancy elements. The good news is it’s easy to tell IE to create them anyway by adding the above Javascript to your <head>. As soon as this code is added, everything looks perfect in IE, albeit with the cool illumination effects being gracefully degraded. It’s worth noting that if Javascript is turned off, IE will show the broken version of the site. Chances are with an iPhone app website like this, the majority of the visitors are going to be clued up on their browsers, so it’s a risk that we could take for this particular design.

View the demo

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Skip to Part 2: (Demo files available for download)

Step 1 – Create the shape

Create a new document in photoshop fit to your needs. In this instance, I’ll be creating a 570px wide button. The height of the new canvas should be twice the height of the button needed (explained later, but for now just use the top half of the canvas).

We’re going to make a rounded button. Use the Rounded Rectangle Tool with a radius of 5px. Keep in mind that we will add a border and shadow, so leave some white space around the button.

Step 2 – Add layer styles

We will use a pretty basic color scheme for the initial state of the button. The surprise (I call it the wow-effect because of the contrast) will be added in the color scheme of the hover state  button.

Drop shadow

Gradient overlay

Stroke

Step 3 – Highlights

Select the the shape of the button: Ctrl (Cmd for Mac users) + Click the Layer Thumbnail in the Layers Palette. Now add a new layer and fill the selection with the color #fafafa (use the Bucket tool). Select the selection tool and move the selection 1px to the right. Now click backspace and the selection will be deleted. Now you need to move the selection 1px up and delete the selection. The last step is to move the selection 2px down and delete the selection. What remains is a sleek highlight effect on the left side of the button.

Apply the same trick on the right side of the button.

Step 4 – Button text

Type the text “Send” or “Submit”, or whatever you wish:

• font: Helvetica Neue Bold
• font-size: 35px
• color: #343434

Add also the following layer style:

Final image

Step 5 – Prepare the canvas for a sprite

We’re going to make a sprite of the buttons. Why sprites and not single images? Why combine all those images? Isn’t it quicker to have smaller images?

Using CSS sprites allows you to greatly increase your websites speed by using single image files that contain multiple graphics. In other words, when you have many images to be used, instead of having them as different individual files, we combine them into one. Therefore, the client computer only downloads one image for all the different graphics to be displayed.

Measure the height of the button. My example has a height of 64px. The link hover button will have the same size as the link button so my Photoshop canvas needs to have a height of 128px (= 2 x 64px). Use Ctrl/Cmd + Alt + C to change the height of the canvas.

Step 6 – The link hover button

Select all layers in the layers palette and place them in one group. Duplicate this group and move it down to the empty space. Now you have the same two buttons in the sprite.

Change the color of the copied text to #fffff and change the drop shadow:

Add the following layer styles on the copied button shape:

Drop shadow: don’t change it.

Gradient overlay

Stroke

Final touches

We’re going to add some gloss to the link hover button. Select the the shape of the button: Ctrl/Cmd + Click the Layer Thumbnail in the Layers Palette. And fill a new layer with the color #ffffff using the Bucket tool. Cut Away the bottom part with the Selection tool and change the opacity to 7%.

The final touch is changing the opacity of the highlights to 30% (which is already applied in the image above), because the original ones are too strong for the green button.

Final image

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If you do not want to complete part one of this tutorial, you can download the source files created in that lesson here.

Step 1 – HTML

Different people will require a button for different purposes. The remainder of this tutorial will explain a simple scenario where the button functions as a simple download link. Create a link to an imaginary (or real) file for download:

<a href="path/to/download.zip" class="button"></a>

Step 2 – CSS

Add the following CSS to your HTML document:

.button {
	width:570px;
	height:64px; /* Notice that the height is not the height of the whole sprite, but the height of one single button */
	display:block;
	background-image:url(images/downloadbutton.png); /*path to the sprite*/
	background-position: top; /* the background position (in combination with the height!) makes it possible that only the top of the whole sprite will be visible */
}

When you apply the CSS code above, you will only see the grey button, because it’s positioned on top and the height is 64px

Link hover button

.button:hover{
	width:570px;
	background-position: bottom;
	height:64px;
	background-image:url(images/downloadbutton.png) no repeat;
}

When you apply the CSS code above, you will only see the green button when you hover the download button, because it’s positioned at the bottom and the height is 64px

Demo: View Live Demo

Step 3 – Fading hover effect

This step is not necessary, but it’s an optional step. The transition will be smoothed with JavaScript. We’re going to use the popular jQuery library.

The original tutorial comes from this website. I’ll do my best to explain.

Step 4 – Add code between the head tags

Download jQuery. First we need to refer in the head to the .js file that we’ve just downloaded.

<script type="text/javascript" src="path/to/jquery-1.3.2.min.js"></script>

After that we can add the following code between the head tags.

<script type="text/javascript"&gt
	$(document).ready(function() {
		// Add the class 'button' just like in CSS with a dot in front of it
		$('.button').append('<span class="hover"&gt</span&gt').each(function () {
	  		var $span = $('&gt span.hover', this).css('opacity', 0);
	  		$(this).hover(function () {
	    		$span.stop().fadeTo(500, 1); //Change the number 500 to change the speed of the Fade In
	 		}, function () {
	   	$span.stop().fadeTo(500, 0); //Change the number 500 to change the speed of the Fade Out
	  		});
		});
	});
</script>

Step 5 – Edit the CSS

.button {
	position:relative;
	display:block;
	height: 64px;
	width: 570px;
	background:url(images/downloadbutton.png) no-repeat;
	background-position: top;
}

.button span.hover { /*notice the different class: span.hover*/
	position: absolute;
	display: block;
	height: 64px;
	width: 570px;
	background: url(images/downloadbutton.png) no-repeat;
	background-position: bottom;
}

View Live Demo to check the result.

Download the source files (PSD included)

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Step 1: Setting Up

Make a new document with these settings:

Next, select the fill tool (G) and fill it with #626262. Now, we need to make a new adjustment layer. Make a brightness/contrast layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast). Put it on these parameters.

We add this adjustment layer so as everything looks better in the later stages.

Step 2: Making the Circle

Select the circular marquee tool and use these settings:

Make a selection and fill it with #649ad2. Then, grab a soft eraser, on a low opacity, and erase some areas like this:

This is so that it looks more 3D, and later on, it’ll add a nice transparent feel to our icon.

When you’re happy, and you have a similar result to the one above, add these Layer FX to it, to make it look better.

You should now have something resembling this:

Step 3: Making the Circle 3D

In this step, we’re going to make the circle look 3D. The theory of this is simple. You think about where the light is coming from, then add shadows and highlights to fit your light source if you keep this consistent, then you’ll have a much better final result. Below is some light theory that should make it easier for you.

OK, grab your circular marquee tool, set it to 10px Feather and make it 200px by 200px. There are many different ways of getting highlights/gloss and shadows. My favourite, and I think one of the best ways to get gloss is like this.

Change the layer mode to multiply

And then, with white as your foreground colour, add this Layer FX

Shadows are much easier to make, and in a way, more powerful. You can have more highlights than shadows, because shadows are more obvious. For a shadow, simply make a circle, you can vary this and the feather px. Then, you can set it to soft light, overlay or of course, normal, it really comes down to which one you like best.

With the shadows, you can make them very discreet, yet they still play a very important part in the eventual outcome of the icon. Highlights are less noticeable, so you can add more of them, but with shadows, they play a bigger part; and have more of an impact.

The worst thing you can do when shadowing is zoom in too far. When you do that, you can’t see the whole image, and so you can’t really tell if it looks right. Make sure that when shadowing, you can see the whole image, and you’re thinking about what you’re doing!

By now, you should have a well highlighted and shadowed 3D sphere, resembling this. Don’t worry if it looks a little strange at this point, it’ll all come together later on.

Step 4: Adding Detail

Now, that looks OK. I added some highlights on the right that add a lot; I used the highlight technique described above. In this step, we are going to make those really nice 3D looking lines. The way to do this is simple, which we’ll find out in a bit.

Select your pen tool and get a brush size of 3px wide. You want to use these settings for the pen tool.

Next, we want to start drawing paths like this:

Set your brush size to around 3 – 5pxNow, for PC users, press right click > stroke path, for Mac users; CTRL + click > stroke path. When you stroke paths, there are two types of stroke paths. With simulated pressures and without simulated pressures. Here is an example of both.

If it doesn’t work, you may need to reset your brushes here’s how to do that:

In the next step, we’ll work out how to make these lines aid the 3D look.

Step 5: Detailing the Detail

You probably have some white lines now, looking 3D, but not merging into the icon. Set the layers to soft light or overlay, you can also lower the opacity and/or the fill of the lines. You can also get a soft eraser to erase some areas to make it look more 3D.

If you look carefully, you will also see not only the very distinct circles, which I’ll tell you how to do later; but also the very faint ones. To make both of them, grab the circular marquee tool with these parameters:

You can then edit the layer styles. For mine, I simply set the opacity to 50%. But you could set it to soft light or overlay.

For the faint ones, but it below every ‘line’ layer, and set it to soft light or overlay and lower the opacity.

In the next step, we’ll make 3D paths, that really add to the image.

Step 6: 3D Paths

This is a really short step, but it adds a lot.

Firstly, get your pen tool open, and then follow these steps.

Step 7: Making the Basic Box

If you want to have something to trace around, you can do so around here. But of course, if you want to make your own, go for it! When you’re tracing, use the pen tool, and make each side on a new layer. Then, fill the paths with white (#ffffff). Then add these layer FX to every side.

On the ‘front’ sides, set the fill to 15% and the ‘back’ sides to 10%. This’ll get it looking transparent.

In the next step, we’ll work on making it more 3D.

Step 8: Highlighting the Box

Remember that highlight technique earlier? Well, use that technique on paths like this. Make a new layer above each box ’side’ and then make a path accordingly. To make ’swirly’ paths, make two points, then; click in the middle of the path and drag it up/down left/right and it’ll make a nice path. Have a look at this example.

Then, select the right ’side’ layer and press CTRL + SHIFT + I or for Mac users CMND + SHIFT + I, then press delete. In the next step we will look at adding more detail into the box.

Step 9: Adding Details to the Box

In this step, there’s not going to be much writing, more annotated pictures. I am using the techniques for stroking paths, highlights and shadows that we looked at earlier to make the box, and anything you seen in these pictures.

Step 10: Making Everything Glow

That looks good, but… Not full of that striking glow. To get something to glow, it’s really easy. Simply get an airbrush, 100-300px and just paint on white. For background highlights, make new layers at the bottom and highlight there. For more centralised ones, do it on top, and maybe in a smaller brush.

To get a better glow-type look, adding lots of layers on 5-10% opacity will look much better than two or three on 40%. You can also add blue highlights to give it more of a glow.

Step 11: Finishing Details

The icon looks good, but it’d be nice to add a bit more shadow. Make a new layer at the top (behind your contrast one) and fill it with black (#000000) and set the fill to 0%. Then add these layer styles and you have a nice shadowed look.

And you’ll have a nice shadowed look to your image.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we’ve learnt about strokes, layering, shadowing, highlighting, layer FX, layer modes, opacity and fill. Put together you can make so many amazing things in Photoshop, so good luck; and make sure you check Tutorial9 frequently for tutorials!

I hope you enjoyed creating your own internet icon!

A large version of the final image can be seen here.

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Subtle background gradients give depth to the fields while shadows lift them from the page. Even more impressive is that this is done without any images at all.

By following this tutorial you will not only end up with a lightweight and beautiful form, you’ll also learn and understand new CSS3 techniques, such as box-shadow, gradients, opaque colors, and rounded corners.

CSS3?

CSS3 is the next generation of CSS that is currently under development, but that doesn’t stop browsers from already implementing most of the prominent features.

Full browser support:

• Google Chrome (4.0)
• Mozilla Firefox (3.6)
• Safari (4.0)

Opera have support for CSS3 (except background gradients) in their next version (10.50 Beta).

Internet Explorer will have full CSS3 support with version 9.

The things you can do with CSS3 (shadows, gradients, round corners, animations, etc) all serve a purpose of creating beautiful effects without having to integrate images or scripts, resulting in quicker loading times.

Step 1: The HTML

Before we begin styling we need something to style, so here is the form.

<form class="form">

	<p class="name">
		<input type="text" name="name" id="name" />
		<label for="name">Name</label>
	</p>

	<p class="email">
		<input type="text" name="email" id="email" />
		<label for="email">E-mail</label>
	</p>

	<p class="web">
		<input type="text" name="web" id="web" />
		<label for="web">Website</label>
	</p>

	<p class="text">
		<textarea name="text"></textarea>
	</p>

	<p class="submit">
		<input type="submit" value="Send" />
	</p>

</form>

Each field is inside a paragraph with its own class, and the three first fields have a label explaining their use.

How does it look without any styling?

Functional, but dull. Let’s start pimping out this form.

Step 2: Basic Styling

Before we dive into the CSS3 techniques we need to create a basic layout for browsers that don’t yet support CSS3.

input, textarea {
	padding: 9px;
	border: solid 1px #E5E5E5;
	outline: 0;
	font: normal 13px/100% Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif;
	width: 200px;
	background: #FFFFFF;
	}

textarea {
	width: 400px;
	max-width: 400px;
	height: 150px;
	line-height: 150%;
	}

input:hover, textarea:hover,
input:focus, textarea:focus {
	border-color: #C9C9C9;
	}

.form label {
	margin-left: 10px;
	color: #999999;
	}

.submit input {
	width: auto;
	padding: 9px 15px;
	background: #617798;
	border: 0;
	font-size: 14px;
	color: #FFFFFF;
	}

How does our effort look so far?

Not too bad. Now, let’s begin our enhancements with the more advanced CSS3.

Step 3: Box-shadow

Box-shadow does exactly what it sounds like: creates a shadow around a box.

The syntax for box-shadow is fairly simple:

box-shadow: <color> <horizontal offset> <vertical offset> <blur>;

Horizontal offset is the placement of the shadow from left to right. If you set it to “2px” the shadow will be 2 pixels to the right. Vertical offset is the same but up/down.

Blur is simply the amount of blur the shadow will have, where 0 is minimum.

This is how our box-shadow will look like:

input, textarea {
	box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0, 0.1) 0px 0px 8px;
	-moz-box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0, 0.1) 0px 0px 8px;
	-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0, 0.1) 0px 0px 8px;
	}

Here we have three lines that look similar.

• box-shadow is pure CSS3 and so far only used in Opera.
• -webkit-box-shadow is for browsers using the Webkit engine, like Chrome and Safari.
• -moz-box-shadow is for browsers using Mozilla’s Gecko engine, like Firefox, Camino, Flock, and SeaMonkey.

Until CSS3 becomes the standard, you have to use all three methods. Internet Explorer has their own weird way of doing things, and although it’s capable of making a shadow it will not look the way we want it. 3

You might notice that there was no normal RGB color used, this is because we’re using two CSS3 techniques on the same line: box-shadow and rgba.

RGBA (Red Green Blue Alpha) is, simply put, color with opacity.

The syntax for rgba is this:

rgba(<red>,<green>,<blue>,<opacity>);

It’s perfectly fine to use a light grey for the shadow’s color, but if you are using any other background than white it will look strange. An opaque black on the other hand will work well no matter what background.

So our box-shadow is black with 10% (0.1) opacity, no horizontal and vertical offset, and with a blur of 8 pixels. It will look like this:

The keyword here is subtlety. If we apply too much shadow, it will look ugly; if we apply too little, it won’t have an effect. Basically, we don’t want anyone to notice the shadow, but still have it lift the fields from the page.

Step 4: Background Gradient

While the box-shadow syntax is easy to grasp, gradients are trickier. With CSS3 gradients, you can create some amazing shapes — from dart boards to rainbows — so as you can imagine it has a more complex syntax. Thankfully, we don’t need to code a rainbow today; we just need a straight linear gradient.

Syntax for Webkit:

-webkit-gradient( linear, <start>, <end>, from(<color>), to(<color>) )

Syntax for Gecko:

-moz-linear-gradient(<start> <angle>, <color>, <color>)

As you can see, the methods are quite different, so this will require some explaining.

Webkit gradients require a start point (X and Y), an end point (X and Y), a from-color, and a to-color. The angle is determined by where start and end are, and the gradient will be colored with the “from(color)” fading to “to(color)”.

Gecko gradients, on the other hand, require only a start point (Y), and at least two colors. If you want a gradient going from top to bottom (90deg) you don’t need to assign an angle.

So to get a simple linear gradient from top to bottom – black to white – we would do like this:

background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#000000), to(#FFFFFF));
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #000000, #FFFFFF);

And it would appear like this:

(I will continue to use the black color for demonstration; at the end, I’ll switch to the real color we will be using for the form.)

Now that we have the basics out of the way, we can start making the form look how we want. The first thing we want to do is limit the height of the gradient so that it looks the same for both input fields and textarea; otherwise the gradient would fill the entire height, like this:

This is how we limit the background gradient to 25px in Webkit and Firefox:

input, textarea {
	background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left 25, from(#000000), to(#FFFFFF));
	background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #000000, #FFFFFF 25px);
	}

For Webkit, instead of setting the end point to “left bottom,” we set it to “left 25″, indicating it will end 25 pixels from the top.

For Gecko, we do the same thing by simply adding a “25px” value to the end color.

And the result is:

The second thing we want to do is create a thin white line at the top of the gradient, to give the subtle visual impression that the field is raised. How important can a single pixel be? Take a look at this article: Adding Depth with Pixel Perfect Line Work.

To create this, we’ll need three points in the gradient. In the previous example, our gradient had two points: top and bottom (black→white). Here, we’ll add an additional point in between them (white→black→white).

To illustrate:

How do we do this?

input, textarea {
	background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left 25, from(#FFFFFF), color-stop(4%, #000000), to(#FFFFFF));
	background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #FFFFFF, #000000 1px, #FFFFFF 25px);
	}

In Webkit we use the color-stop function, but unfortunately it doesn’t support values in pixels, only percentage. But thanks to paying attention to math in school we figure that 4% of 25px is 1px.

For Gecko, we simply add a third color between the first two and give it a “1px” value, indicating that it should end 1 pixel from the top.

The thin white line:

Now, let’s change the black color (#000000) to a more fitting light grey (#EEEEEE):

Just some small detail work remains.

First, we’ll create a darker shadow for the fields when the user hovers or selects it:

input:hover, textarea:hover,
input:focus, textarea:focus {
	-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15) 0px 0px 8px;
	}

It’s just an increase from 10% to 15%, but what we are after is, once again, subtlety.

The last thing we do is create some rounded corners for the button3 to further make it stand out from the other elements:

.submit input {
	-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
	-moz-border-radius: 5px;
	}

The value is the radius the corners will be rounded by. The standard border-radius is intentionally left out since Opera seems to have some problem with it.

Result:

Step 5: The Other Browsers

Now we just need to take care of the browsers that don’t support CSS3 yet (IE), or only partly does (Opera).

We want the different versions (CSS3 and the normal) to look as similar as possible, and the simplest thing is to go back to the old way: images.

Simply take a screenshot of the beautiful CSS3 form and save a small portion of the gradient as an image.

Next, use it in the input and textarea as a background. As long as the CSS3 gradients comes after the background image, browsers that support CSS3 will ignore the image.

input, textarea {
	background: #FFFFFF url('bg_form.png') left top repeat-x;
	}

And now we are done! Enjoy your form and I hope you have learned something.

Final Preview

Chrome (4.0), Firefox (3.6), Safari (4.0):

Opera (10.50b):

Internet Explorer (8):

Full CSS

input, textarea {
	padding: 9px;
	border: solid 1px #E5E5E5;
	outline: 0;
	font: normal 13px/100% Verdana, Tahoma, sans-serif;
	width: 200px;
	background: #FFFFFF url('bg_form.png') left top repeat-x;
	background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left 25, from(#FFFFFF), color-stop(4%, #EEEEEE), to(#FFFFFF));
	background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #FFFFFF, #EEEEEE 1px, #FFFFFF 25px);
	box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0, 0.1) 0px 0px 8px;
	-moz-box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0, 0.1) 0px 0px 8px;
	-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0,0,0, 0.1) 0px 0px 8px;
	}

textarea {
	width: 400px;
	max-width: 400px;
	height: 150px;
	line-height: 150%;
	}

input:hover, textarea:hover,
input:focus, textarea:focus {
	border-color: #C9C9C9;
	-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15) 0px 0px 8px;
	}

.form label {
	margin-left: 10px;
	color: #999999;
	}

.submit input {
	width: auto;
	padding: 9px 15px;
	background: #617798;
	border: 0;
	font-size: 14px;
	color: #FFFFFF;
	-moz-border-radius: 5px;
	-webkit-border-radius: 5px;
	}

Conclusion

That’s all there is to it! With minimal effort, and the power of CSS 3, we’ve turned a bland and ordinary form into something beautiful. Thanks so much for reading, and feel free to ask any questions that you might have below.

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Final Image Preview

Below is the final image we will be working towards.

Tutorial Details

• Program: Adobe Illustrator CS3
• Difficulty: Beginner
• Estimated Completion Time: 2 hours

Step 1

First I searched for different photos of the Goldfinch and made some realistic sketches. This way I get to know the subject and can experiment with different poses. Use simple shapes to form your character. We will add details later, first make sure the basics look right.

Try different kinds of shapes and pick the one that fits your character best. If you go for cute, then you probably need some kind of round shape. I chose to use two rectangles on top of each other, with round corners to keep it cute.

Step 2

Import the sketch into Illustrator (File > Place) and trace the sketch with the Pen Tool. Use one layer for the outlines and one layer under it for the base colors. When you use separate layers for them you can make layers between them for the shading and highlights.

Use the least number of anchor points in your lines as possible for nice, clean outlines. I selected one line in green so you can see the amount of anchor points.

Step 3

To make the paint splatters I used photos of real paint splatters. You can make them yourself and scan them in or use stock photos. I used photos from
cgtextures.com, they have hundreds of splatter photos. The photo you choose doesn’t have to be perfect, you can change it later, but the better the shape is now, the less time you have to spend on changing it later.

First we’ll make the splatters for the wings into vector shapes with the function Live Trace. Select the splatter photo and go to Object > Live Trace > Tracing Options. Use the settings shown. The most important settings are “Black and White” because we only need 1 color fills because we don’t need strokes. Ignore White is also important because we don’t need the white background to be a vector shape too.

Step 4

Select the splatters and go to Object > Expand, now your splatters are vector shapes. Probably the splatters aren’t the perfect shape yet, that’s no problem. There are two options to edit them. One option is to select the splatters and go to Filter > Distort > Free Distort. Move the four anchor points around to edit your splatters. You have a lot of possibilities this way, but for the wings it wasn’t enough. I wanted to bend the shape to follow the shape of the wings.

To bend the splatters apply Effect > Warp > Arc. Select Preview so you can see the changes directly on screen. The blue outlines are the original splatters and the black fills are what I made of it through changing some settings. Now it bends more, which is exactly what I want.

Step 5

Give the splatters the color you want by selecting the splatters and then selecting a color in the toolbar. Move the splatters to the place you want them. In this case they are too big and are also on the belly and even outside the bird, while I only want them on the wings. You can delete some of the small splatters by selecting them and pressing Delete, or using the Eraser Tool, but you can also use the Pathfinder tools, which is much easier and more precise.

Open the pathfinder by going to Window > Pathfinder. You have to make a shape where you want the splatters to show up, in this case I already have that shape: the wing. I can’t use the wing itself or it will disappear after use, so I copy the wing (Command + C) and paste it in the exact same place (Command + F). Now select the copied wing and the splatters and click on Intersect Shape Areas in the pathfinder. You can see the result in the image below.

Step 6

Use the same techniques for all the other splatters. After I made the splatters I thought it looked a bit dull though, so I decided to add more color by making more splatters smaller than the existing ones. I used the same splatters, but scaled and rotated them a little so they look different. I also gave them a lighter color than the existing splatters to create a highlight/shading effect.

If your style is more detailed than this, then you can of course also use five different splatters with different colors and sizes to make the illusion of one splatter.

Step 7

I always like to make a thick outline around my drawing to make it look more like a cartoon. To make a thick outline select all your current black outlines and copy them (Command + C) and make a new layer beneath all the other layers.

In this layer paste the outlines in place (Command + F). Keep the lines selected and give them a thicker stroke weight than the original lines. In this case the lines for the beak and the feet looked weird if I made them thicker, so I deleted them. Normally I make a thick outline around everything.

In this screenshot you can also see how my layers there are so far. I use a lot of different layers and also name them, this saves time searching through layers if I want to edit something.

Step 8

I used the same techniques to create the other two birds. I used the same outlines for them, not because I was lazy, but because I thought it was cool that I could use the same lines to create three different birds looking in three different directions. I only changed the positions of the beaks and recreated the yellow and orange splatters for the other two birds. I also drew a simple branch for the birds to sit on using the Pen Tool.

Step 9

I used three different shapes to make the branch, to merge them select all three shapes and go to Window > Pathfinder > Merge. The result is that the whole branch is one shape. This is important for the other steps.

Step 10

To make the branch look more interesting, let’s give it a texture. This is a well-known technique for Photoshop users, but it’s not necessary to switch to Photoshop because Illustrator has layer options too. This is not a vector effect though because I used a photo which is pixels instead of vector.

Choose a photo with a nice effect, this doesn’t have to be a photo of a branch, often it’s even better to choose a picture of something completely different. I used a stock photo of rocks from cgtextures.com. I used the photo in black and white because I want to choose my own colors. You can also use a color photo for some nice effects.

Add the photo to your drawing (File > Place) and make a copy of the branch (Command + C). Make a new layer and paste the new branch in the same place (Command + F). We will use this new branch to edit the photo.

Step 11

We’ll use a clipping mask to make the photo only visible on the branch and not the complete background. Select the copied branch and the photo, then apply Object > Clipping Mask > Make.

Make sure the branch is still selected and open the Transparency window (Window > Transparency) and where it says Normal change it to Overlay. Also, set the Opacity to 70%.

Step 12

For the background I used another stock photo from
cgtextures.com. I also changed this one to black and white with Photoshop because the original is brown and I don’t want to use that color.

Step 13

Create a rectangle with the Rectangle Tool (M) for the background in a layer beneath the background texture photo. Go to Window > Gradient to add a gradient to it. Select the rectangle and then select two colors in the Gradient window to make a gradient. Set the angle to 90 degrees to change it to a vertical gradient.

Step 14

Select the background texture photo and go to Window > Transparency, set it to Overlay and the Opacity to 60%. Your layers should now look like this:

Final image

Have fun creating your own textured characters.

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