Design Concept Question - Headers

[Bullet Magnet]

Hi all, allow me to introduce myself. OK, now that that's over, I have a question for our ol' pal, Zorro, or whoever might be roaming these forums with web design knowledge.

I've designed my header with a logo, logo text, and a navigation menu like so: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/545/headeryxc.png/

I'm confused on how to proceed with splitting it up into HTML elements. The way I see it, there are several different ways. For example, one could use a 1px version of the header gradient and repeat it across the page. This would create the entire header background without using a large image. However, you must then split up the logo design into its own images, which would be extremely difficult given the several different layers for reflections and such (and the fading gradient on the reflecting text/fish would then be screwed up and have to be done in CSS instead).

Instead, I would think the easiest method would be to slice up the entire header including the logo text and logo (i.e. Blushark Media & the jumping fish). You would most likely leave out the navigation menu from the image and create it in HTML using the unordered list tag. This would leave you with a fully functional header of size 980x150px. Would I actually need to split the header up into two slices? One for the logo text/logo and one for the navigation side? Or three slices, even?

How would you proceed, Zorro? I don't need a technical walkthrough or anything... just confirmation of the design plan.

[Zorro]

A 100px wide repeating X gradient (1px will work too, but 100px will render faster) as your page background. Slice the logo area as is. With your gradient, as long as the logo is in the same vertical position relative to your gradient, it won't matter where you place it horizontally.

[Bullet Magnet]

What do you mean by slice the logo as-is? That's my main question, basically. Do you mean use one image with logo, text, nav buttons, etc.?

[BlackCat]

Use HTML5 and don't worry about it.

[Bullet Magnet]

Use HTML5 and don't worry about it.

You remind me of a kid in my Introduction to Information Systems class.

We were working in Access a bit and the teacher wrote a simple SQL SELECT statement. It had a semicolon at the end of it, so some idiot was like, "oh ok, so this is c++?" He thought he sounded smart.

[BlackCat]

I'll shut my mouth then.