As an artist and webdesigner as well I can tell u right off the bat that the site has been Photoshopped....The whole design is a template design, using Adobe Photoshop (I dunno which version) as the graphics. The layout is a advanced version of the table layout itself. With Photoshop it comes bundled w/ Adobe Image Ready sorta like their version of Macromedia's fireworks, and that is how the rollover button work is done. You can basically do a whole website in photoshop and slice the graphics accordingly. Trial and error, the thing is the design. Coding would be the easier part, the design and the coding w/ design is the toughie. The design on Jonathan Nelson's site is a simple design with just some text art, simple shapes, embossed edges, and a little photomanpulation on the header itself. The navigation header has been embossed and done with some simple text art, and small shadows. So it is still a clean simple layout designed site, and looked really elegant. The rollover is a simple transparent gradient, so, this is pretty cool.
I design websites a lot just check out my own website with the link its more of a comic/manga website, but I used photoshop and MS Front Page to code everything accordingly. It took me a whole month to create this version of my website so. This is the link:
www.lponline2k4.com There are some tutorials on these type of layouts on the web. If I can be of any assistance just send me a PM.
Kadman, like what you did on the site so far, lookin' good.
God bless,
-Shan