Related Articles:
Iframes
You'll either need a header at the top or a background image where your content will go. Header: Slightly animated is ok, but not too heavy. Should say the version, title of the site and generally creates the colour scheme. Background: Make sure you can read your text on it! Maybe an animated border? At the side you could display your main image. Generally, people hate having to scroll left and right, so avoid making your layout too wide
Before you dive straight into the actual designing of the graphic, you need to consider measurments, e.g: If my banner is 958px how wide will my navigation be? Depends what kind of navigation you have!
Navigation...You could use DROP DOWN MENUS, FOLDING TREE MENUS, SLIDE OUT MENUS, SUB MENUS, or simple LINKS.
Drop down menus.
My tut is here These are nice if you have only a few pages in each section. Used for long, narrow iframes. E.g: Fun: [drop down bit] Games, Quizzes, Puzzles etc.
Folding Tree Menus My tut on this is here. These only have one sub-layer, but I've researched it and its much easier to use than programs which you create them on or complicated PHP ones. This is a lovely choice because, with my tutorial, it's easy to custumize and use with lots of options. Nice if you have a lot of pages and your catergories have sub'catergories eg: Contact [not a link] [sub'menu] Contact me [below] Contact Details. I use these on my site, but not everyobdy can view them, so I have a HTML Sub'menu version (see below)
Slide Out Menus
My tut on slide out menus are here. These look good with a horizontal iframe. If you don't have su'catergories, this is definitly the choice for you!
Image Maps Just because they're simple, doesn't mean they can't be stylish! You could use words like: 'Queen' 'Palace' 'Guest' 'Guests Room' 'Library' 'Address' which translates: The owner, the site, you, your site, tutorials and contact repectivly. Its just a way to spice up your menu. Or you could use graphics (make sure they're not hidden in the layout!) and when you hover over them, the say what the translate to (called 'ALT' codes)
Floating Menus Floating menus..I reccomend you use one which locks in place otherwise they can get annoying. I don't really see the point in them, they make your layout look ugly. Well, its ok if you want to be original and your Iframe image only suits the content Iframe.
Vertical Slide Out This is like the horizontal slide out menu except vertical..don't see those a lot do you? These don't have sub menus and are a java version of basic links.
Click Downs Click downs are useful for displaying large notices. They come with one sublayer and are vertical. Reccomended highly because your visitor can click on the header and see all pages/subs in that section. If its irrelavent they can close it up again. It looks great if you have a small nav space!