TechnoMono

I made this web button for a friend’s website and liked it so much that I decided to write a tutorial to show you how I made it. The button is simple and flexible; you can use it on your web pages or even in a flash game.

Here’s what we’ll be making:

For this tutorial I’ve used a font called Sinner. But you can use any of the default fonts that come with GIMP.

To start things off, create a new image of 140×30 and fill the background layer with #7F7F7F using the fill tool (SHIFT+B). Alternatively you can press CTRL+, to fill a layer or selection with the current foreground color; rename this layer ‘border’. Press CTRL+A to select the entire canvas, then go Select > Shrink and shrink by 1px.

Change the foreground color to #007DE8 and the background color to #27A6FE. Create a new layer called ‘BG’ (Layer > New Layer). Apply a gradient from left to right of the selection (L for gradient tool, holding CTRL while you drag will keep the gradient straight), then deselect (CTRL+SHIFT+A). Now add the button name (T for text tool), make sure the text color is white (#FFFFFF). I’ve used a font size of 12px. Move the text to the center of the image using the move tool (M).

Now to make the small arrows. You’ll need to zoom in a bit for this; you can either use the zoom tool (Z) or use CTRL (SHIFT for GIMP 2.2) and scroll the mouse wheel. Create a new layer (name not important, since we’ll merge this layer with another shortly), press D then X to reset and swap the colors. Using the pencil tool (N for pencil tool), set the brush size to 1px:

Draw a 45° line going 5px tall. When you click for the start of the line, hold down SHIFT+CTRL (this will constrain the angle to 15° increments), move to the left three incremental snaps; then click where you want the line to end. You’ll have a line like so:

Draw another line, this time downward 5px, like so:

Repeat this step two more times just to the right of the first line, this will thicken the arrow making it easier to see. Once done, you’ll have an arrow like this:

Now duplicate this layer (Layer > Duplicate Layer); move the duplicate layer to the left 4px (press M to activate the move tool, then use the left arrow key to move it). Then right-click the active layer in the layer stack and choose ‘Merge Down’; this will merge both arrow layers together. Position the arrows where you want them in relation to the text. When your done, right-click the active layer in the layer stack and choose ‘Merge Down’; this will merge the arrows with the text, which will make giving a drop-shadow easy. You should have the following:

It still looks flat and lifeless; this is where the drop shadow comes in to play. Make sure the layer with the text and arrows is selected in the layer stack, then go Filters > Light and Shadow > Drop Shadow (for GIMP 2.2 users go Script-Fu > Shadow > Drop Shadow). Set the X and Y offsets to 2, the blur radius to 8 and the opacity to 60% and click OK. If the canvas size has increased, simply right-click the ‘border’ layer and choose ‘Aplha to Selection’ then go Image > Crop to Selection.

As always, I couldn’t resist making a few variations:

I hope you find this useful