To design this which is super simple, all you have to do is write some CSS and organize your div's and sections properly. It saves the browser from using an image, and you have more control over every element you're trying to design up, if you know how to code css, or css3 for these kinds of layouts.
So for your layout, you wont use a image at all, unless you want to. Even if you want a gradient, noise, or radial gradient you can code it up using CSS3. All you have to do is this. Your mockup is extremely easy to code up using divs, and a section. All you have to do is code it up properly and it'll be a cake walk. Though, depending on what kind of coder you are, your going to want to organize the code-sample I did below using your preferences. Every coders different, so you might go about doing it a different way. But anyways, heres a demo I whipped up that should help you understand what's going on.
Here's a coded mockup.
http://result.dabblet.com/gist/3264534/ba52849cdab34248ad016f75461eea4ffeb39995
This is what it looks like.
Here's the code for you to have
https://gist.github.com/3265160
http://dabblet.com/gist/3265160 ^ The dabblet is a live demo.
EDIT : To clarify the commets in the demo. I mean hex #'s 000 through 777. So for example, 000, 111, 222, 333,444,555,666,777, then you can get more colors by using 191919, 212121,and so on so forth.
EDIT : #2. The BG is the top headers stretched bg, its also the sites bg. So you'll have to refactor the example to your liking. This was just whipped up really quick so it's kind of messy.
HSL version by Lea Verou: http://dabblet.com/gist/ed4f0a7dc7326e8e28b8
She also pointed out that the jQuery in OP's link is the same size as if it was vanilla JS (not including the jQuery library itself!)
Can you paste your code into something else other than reddit please? Here's a service. Reddit mangles code and I'm not sure if the problems I see are actually in your code or if reddit mangled it.
The cleanest dropdown solution uses no js at all. It uses a couple of css styles hooked to either checkboxes or radio buttons, and some interesting targeted pseudoselectors in css.
A little bit late to the party, but I tried to recreate it digitally: Blender render This is my first attempt at transferring a photograph into a 3D model. I also made a comparison between original and render.
I'm a new front end designer/developer, and I will recommend the method I'm using to learn jQuery currently.
Find a book on the html/css and run through the examples (ie. type them out) in a tool like dabblet or CSSDeck.
The more you write it the faster you will understand it. I cannot emphasis this enough.