Part one of the Designing a Clan Template tutorial will teach you how to make a wicked, general-themed game header/banner for the template.

1. Document/Canvas

Firstly, you should create a new document for your clan template design, this really depends on if you want the desing suitable for 800×600 resolution users or not, I just used a document size of 880×1000. (not quite suitable for 800×600 resolution users)
Now fill your background with a suitable color, I used a very dark grey – #262626.

2. Creating the Header

Now, you’ll need some game renders/wallpapers, again this depends on your preference, it depends on what game your clan is for! I got my wallpapers from GameWallpapers, but you need a paid subscription to download nearly all wallpapers. You can get some nice, free game cutout renders from ClanTemplates.
I first First added in a wallpaper of Battlefield 2142, then made a few simple touchups to the banner.
(touching up as in: Blurring background, brightening, adding contrast, sharpening.)

Next I added in a wallpaper of a game called Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. I re-sized it down to fit nicer and erased a fair bit of the corners using a large, soft brush.

Lastly for the images I added in a wallpaper of Crysis in the top right, I erased the left corners of this image to blend with the other wallpaper.

Looks pretty good with those game pictures in it, doesn’t it? View my header so far.

3. Creating your Logo

Now it’s time to create a logo-type container that you can put your clan name inside of. First, start by making a rounded rectangle. You can do this by using the Rounded Rectangle Tool with a radius of about 10 px.

Use settings similar to the following:

So, create a new layer and make your rounded rectangle. You can use any color for this, after you apply the layer styles it won’t really matter.

To add layer styles to this box, right-click the layer in the layer’s palette and go into the Blending Options, now click and apply the following layer styles:

1. Inner Shadow
2. Gradient Overlay

You should now have something like this:

Not looking the best so far.. but we’re getting to it. Create another new layer then merge your previous layer with the new one, this is to merge the layer styles with the layer. Now you can add some more layer styles!

1. Inner Shadow
2. Outer Glow
3. Inner Glow
4. Gradient Overlay
5. Pattern Overlay (download pattern from here: Warning Tape)

You should be left with the following result:

(Note: to turn an image into a pattern, open it into Photoshop, select all, go to Edit > Define Pattern.)
Lastly for this text container I added a 1 px line near the bottom of the rectangle, the color which I used was red (#ff0000) and I also applied this Outer Glow to it.

4. Clan Name Text

Now it’s time to add your clan name to the container. First, find and get out the Horizontal Type Tool (the normal type tool) then write out your text inside of the box.

I used pure white (#ffffff) as my text color, I then applied the following layer styles to the text layer:

1. Drop Shadow
2. Outer Glow
3. Color Overlay
4. Gradient Overlay

Lastly for the text I added a bright ‘highlight/shine’ effect halfway through the text.

All you have to do to get that effect is create a new layer, select the text pixels (Hold ctrl and click the layer thumbnail), fill the selection with white, delete the lower half of your white layer then lower the opacity. Well, this part of the tutorial is complete, you can view my the result below.

• Designing a Clan Template Part 1
• Designing a Clan Template Part 2
• Designing a Clan Template Part 3

Thanks very much for reading this first part of the tutorial, I hope you enjoyed it!


In the 2nd part of this series I’m going to show you how to design a cool set of navigation buttons, like the one shown in the below image.

1. Open your Document

Let’s get started! First of all open up the PSD you created from the last tutorial. Now create a selection on your canvas the same width as the header graphic, but only about 40 px in height.

Now you’ve made your selection, smooth it by about 5 pixels by going to Select > Modify > Smooth.

On a new layer fill this selection with the same color as the background, in my case it’s #262626. Now apply this Gradient Overlay to add more detail to the navigation bar.

2. Adding Details to Navigation

Hold ctrl and click the main layer, this will make a selection around the whole layer. Create a new layer and draw a White/Transparent gradient from above the top of the selection to the middle or bottom, or you could just fill the selection with white, not much difference.

Now, since the navigation bar is 40 px in height, make a selection at the bottom containg 20 pixels of the gradient, press delete to delete the bottom part of the gradient.

Next, lower the opacity for this layer to about 20% and change the layer mode to either Soft Light or Overlay.
Again select the main layer and create a new layer. Fill your new selection with white (#ffffff) and move the selection up one pixel, press delete.

Lower the opacity for this layer to about 20-35% and change the layer mode to, again, Soft Light or Overlay.
Repeat that for the top line, except when you’re done, move the line down one pixel. This is just for the sake of small details.

3. Creating Buttons

Now it’s time to start making the buttons! Firstly, make a selection inside of the bar, make it a healthy-sized button -the selection of my button was 100×26 pixels. You should/can also smooth your button selection by 2-4 pixels (Select > Modify > Smooth)

Now, fill the selection with a yellowish gradient – the colors I used for my gradient were #d3bd3e and #76551e.

Right-click your layer, go into the Blending Options apply the following layer styles to your button layer:

1. Inner Shadow
2. Inner Glow
3. Color Overlay
4. Gradient Overlay
5. Pattern Overlay (Download pattern from here: Warning Tape.)
6. Stroke

You should be left with a nice, industrial-styled button pretty much like this:

Not bad for just a few layer styles, huh?

4. Button Detailing

If you want to give your button a few extra details, follow this step. On a new layer draw a red (#ff0000) line from one end of the button to the other.

Using the eraser tool, using a large, soft brush erase the left and right sides away.

Now apply the following Drop Shadow and Outer Glow to this red line layer.

To finish off the button add your text. I used Tahoma, 11pt, Bold, No Anti Aliasing, #ffffff, also with this Outer Glow applied.

Merge your button layers together (not including the text layer) then duplicate the two remaining layers and move them along the line. Repeat this as many times as you want, depending on how many buttons you want. I ended up with 7 buttons, after finishing off, you should also center all of the buttons in the navigation bar.

Thanks for reading this part of the tutorial! If you want to continue, click one of the links below.



In this part (3rd and last part) of the tutorial you’ll learn how to make the recent matches and whatnot boxes, and also the footer bar.

1. Creating the First Bar

Firstly open the clan template file you were working with before, then make a selection underneath the header for the Recent Matches bar. My selection is 280×24 pixels in size (a little wide, but I had to use up all of the space).

Smooth this selection by 5 or so pixels by going to Select > Modify > Smooth and inputting the number. Now we’re basically repeating what we did with the navigation bar in the last tutorial, so you can look back at the navigation bar to see what you did to it.

1. Apply Gradient Overlay.
2. Add shine.
3. Add highlights, top and bottom.

Lastly for this bar, using the pencil tool draw a small pixel arrow at the bottom in the middle, then add your text.

2. Creating Smaller Sub Bars

Next thing is to create a new layer then make a selection underneath the main bar, make your selection the same in width but a bit smaller in height (mine was 280×14 pixels). Now smooth the new selection by about 2-3 pixels, lastly fill the selection with white (#ffffff)

Lower the fill opacity for this layer to about 5-10% then apply the following layer styles:

1. Inner Shadow
2. Gradient Overlay

Now you can duplicate this layer and move it down 1 px underneath the first one. Repeat this until you have 6 or so bars, your choice.

Last thing to do here is add in your match details, like what I’ve done below:

What do you think? Not bad in my opinion.

3. Footer Bar, Etc

Group all of the Recent Matches layers together then duplicate the group, move it over so there’s about 10 pixels space in between. Repeat again once.

(click image for full size)
Using the same steps, make a content/updates area for the template. In the end I also added a bar underneath the Recent Matches, etc. boxes that shows you where abouts on the website you are

Finally I added the footer with the copyright.