How to create a resizing menu bar

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March 12, 2013
How to create a resizing menu bar.

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\"Thumbnail\"Lately some websites, like This is the Brigade<\/a> and All You<\/a>, have started featuring a dynamic and animated menu that resizes on scroll down. Minimizing the main navigation to allow more space for the content. In this tutorial, I\u2019ll explain how you can create this menu yourself with HTML5, CSS3 and just a bit of jQuery.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

This kind of menu is great if you want to give special focus on your content throughout the whole website, and it also enables you to create a bigger and more impactful navigation on a user’s first visit to a website. You can better show your website brand or logo, great for the above the fold view; and after engaging the user in a visit, a smaller and minimized version hides away subtly to let the user focus mainly on your content.<\/p>\r\n

There are several ways of doing this. In this tutorial, I\u2019ll explain how to create a full width fixed menu bar, that resizes in height along with the logo, creating a simple minimized version of the initial one. If you prefer you can also replace the logo image by another variation of your logo, such as initials or an icon, but keep in mind that consistency is really important here, so that the user understands how the element has changed and that its main purpose is still the original one; navigating the website.<\/p>\r\n

Before we start, you can 

Antonio Pratas

Antonio Pratas is a Digital Designer and Art Director, who also writes code for the web. You can follow him on twitter at @antoniopratas

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