Vandelay Design

45 Photoshop Tutorials for Better Navigation

Published March 3rd, 2008 in Design

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Navigation is obviously one of the most crucial aspects of web design in terms of usability, but often it is also a focal point of the design’s appearance. Navigational buttons, bars and menus provide the designer with an excellent opportunity to be creative and add some style to the design. What better tool to use for this purpose than Photoshop?

Here is a collection of 45 tutorials that will help you with creating the perfect navigation. Some of them produce an end result that is fairly similar to another tutorial on the list, but you can learn something from each one as they take a slightly different approach.

You may also be interested in the following collections of Photoshop tutorials:

Stunning Vista inspired menu from PSDTuts

stunning vista inspired menu

Slick blue navigation menu from SigTutorials

Slick blue navigation menu

Glossy navigation bar from Core GFX

Glossy navigation

Quick glass buttons from Bits O’ NewMedia

Quick glass buttons

Basic sleek button from psFreak.com

Basic sleek button

Sleek buttons from OriginMaker

Sleek buttons

Vista styled button from psFreak

Vista styled button

Shiny green button from psFreak

Shiny green button

Sleek glossy blue button from AnotherTutorialSite

Sleek glossy blue button

Stylish button from OriginMaker

Stylish button

Glowing buttons from OriginMaker

Glowing buttons

Stylish blue button from Photoshop-Tutorials.us

Stylish blue button

Shiny orange button from TutorialSubmitter

Shiny orange button

Unique blue button from OriginMaker

Unique blue button

Stylish black nav bar from Dicat.us

Stylish black nav bar

Vista buttons using styles only from The Not Simple Solution

Vista buttons using styles only

Black Vista style button from Great Design

Black vista style button

XP style navigation from Tutorial Guide

XP style navigation

Glossy navigation menu from Gamexe.net

glossy navigation menu

Glossy style carbon fibre navigation from Photshop Star

glossy style carbon fibre navigation

Professional glossy buttons from Photoshop Star

professional glossy buttons

Simple glossy navigation buttons from Photoshop Star

simple glossy buttons

Image sprite navigation using CSS from Style Meltdown

Image sprites navigation

Orb button effect from Boonage

Orb button

Clean and dark navigation bar from Aviva Directory

Clean and dark navigation

Nice, clean vertical menu from bwebi.com

Vertical menu

Flexible buttons using Photoshop shapes and styles from Veerle

Flexible buttons

Web 2.0 style buttons from Iris Design

Web 2.0 style buttons

Vista style nav bar from Aviva Directory

Vista style nav bar

Web 2.0 buttons from BlogWatts

Web 2.0 buttons

XBox360 style nav bar from EvoGFX

XBox style nav

Simple and clean menu bar from Photoshop Pack

Simple and clean menu

Glass type navigation bar from Pixel Digest

Glass type navigation

Tabbed navigation menu from UPUP Media

Tabbed nav menu

Vertical navigation menu from EvoGFX

Vertical menu

Plastic navigation bar from Tutorial Park

Plastic navigation bar

Blue button from Toxic Lab

Blue button

Glossy web 2.0 buttons from Aviva Directory

Glossy button

Pixel style navigation box from Aviva Directory

Pixel style navigation

Red “order now” button from Caged Flame

order now

Aqua button from Pragt.net

Aqua button

Mac button from Pragt.net

Mac button

Duotone vertical menu from Pegaweb

Duotone vertical

Glass button from Depiction.net

Glass button

Simple web button from 3by9

Simple web button

Professional dark button from Aviva Directory

Professional dark button

94 Responses to “45 Photoshop Tutorials for Better Navigation”

Alex Hackbart March 3rd, 2008

Awesome post and thanks for the link! Theres a ton of tutorials here that would combine a nice design with my CSS tutorial and make a nicer looking but functional nav. Looking forward to more great posts

niksy March 4th, 2008

Nice collection, thank you very much!

Neon March 4th, 2008

These look ace but you must still remember that the site still needs working navigation if images are disabled so always remember to tag properly and make sure the text and backgrounds are different colours :)

Ruchir Chawdhry March 4th, 2008

Excellent resource, Steven…

Welcome to Paradise March 4th, 2008

Hello,

These are top class navigation tutorials. Very nice collection, thank you very much for this compilation!

Sangesh March 4th, 2008

Thank you for this article. This really great and very helpful for me. Thanks again.

Lukas Labryszewski March 4th, 2008

What a great list! Thank you very much for this.
You got my bookmark!

Vandelay Design March 4th, 2008

Neon,
You’re absolutely right. Looks shouldn’t replace the need for accessibility. Most of these Photoshop images can easily be used as background images with text on top to maintain accessibility.

Matthew Griffin March 4th, 2008

Quite a comprehensive list, Steven. Also, thanks for the link.

Digital Revolutions March 4th, 2008

Nice list of tutorials, great work :D

Jon March 6th, 2008

Nice list. My web designer has been redoing our menu system after someone described our interface as cold and dirty!

Mert March 8th, 2008

thanks much,i need its..

ccchai March 9th, 2008

Trackback from “Best resources for Web developers and designers” ( http://impressionsoft.blogspot.com/2008/03/best-resources-for-web-developers-and.html )

johnrobin March 18th, 2008

wow… wonderful, what an inspiration.. design is the gate of trust to a web site.. thanks for the collection. I still looking for ways how to combine the design and text just in case user has disabled to load images from a web.

amelia April 3rd, 2008

See also these Web 2.0 style buttons http://www.minidesign.it/mos/view/Webdesign/Grafica/Pulsanti-web-20-stile-glossy/

olci May 12th, 2008

web 2 style buttons is great;)
thanks a lot.
i am sharing this post via my friends.

tx again.

John Smith May 14th, 2008

You need more than photoshop to create good navigation and I’m not talking about graphics now…

Vandelay Design May 14th, 2008

John,
I agree, and I mentioned that in the opening sentence.

Karl Hardisty June 2nd, 2008

Thanks for the great article. Buttons can make or break a design, so the more options the better.

While I’m a big fan of keeping code light and using text for links wherever possible, many of these designs make a great case for image based menus.

stfn June 9th, 2008

Nice collection, thank you

seonyár2008 June 11th, 2008

Great collection!

Mark Abucayon July 10th, 2008

wow listings of menu list would be helpful too, thanks again for sharing this one..

Teknoloji September 8th, 2008

wow listings of menu list would be helpful too, thanks again for sharing this one..

TaunT November 18th, 2008

web 2 style buttons is great

Alex November 23rd, 2008

Cool article and thanks for including my image sprite article, there is another article here Image Sprites Tutorial that may have some more helpful stuff if you want to add it

Frank J November 25th, 2008

Thanks for the great article. Buttons can make a site look more appealing for sure!

nice list featuring very different designstyles… thanks!

Satish Borkar January 16th, 2009

really, u’r work is so cute!! Amazing that psd tuts menu

Thank you very much for

quang cao online May 11th, 2009

you need more than photoshop to create good navigation.

Vandelay Design May 11th, 2009

Quang,
I agree completely, but knowing how to make it look good can help.

manmadhakumar June 13th, 2009

this is very royal collection.i need this type of collection more.i have gotta good knowledge by watching your collection.thanks.

slang September 21st, 2009

nice tuto
thank you guys

legOstaRwArs November 6th, 2009

nice tutorial list.
very thanks.

Adam Martin December 4th, 2009

This is just what I had been looking for. Thanks.

il Sindaco di Notiziopoli.it December 10th, 2009

Hello guys, thanks a lot for this very very cool stuff!

迷你倉 December 30th, 2009

there are good tutorial ! thanks

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