50+ Gorgeous Navigation Menus

Published November 10th, 2008 in Galleries

If you’re looking to learn more about design websites, please see our post Learn Web Design for plenty of resources to help your educational pursuit.

When I’m looking at excellent websites for design inspiration, one of my favorite aspects of design to notice is the navigation menu. While I enjoy seeing excellent designs of all types (minimal to artistic to colorful to dark) and various aspects of the site (including headers and footers), a well-designed and well-executed navigation menu can have more impact on my appreciation of a site than any other single piece of the design.

In this post I’d like to take a look at more than 50 stellar examples of navigation menus that positively impact the design of a website. The list includes a great deal of variety. Regardless of what you personally prefer, there should be some inspirational examples in here for you.

For more design inspiration, see:

Housing Works

30elm

Nuttersmark

Paiko

Good

Soh Tanaka

Matt Dempsey

Web Design Ledger

Bridge55

Rzepak Pure

Fall for Tennessee

Digitalmash

BlackBook Magazine

Thuiven

Valley Creek Church

Branded07

Kyan

Carbonica

Remedy Drive

SpaceCollective

Aten Design Group

Power to the Poster

Lift Interactive

Surfstation

Ad Fed

College Park Church

WWD

Jamie’s Italian

StyleSpion

Grooveeffect

Rockatee

Boxwish

The Resume Girl

Vitor Lourenco

Ashville School

Buffalo

Africa Tour 2008

Designsensory

Jobs on the Wall

Aptana

Stucel

MacAllen Ridge

Create and Live

The 9513

Scott Mallinson

Paolo Boccardi

Interactive

Mint

DrupalCon DC

New Song Church

45royale

Mia & Maggie

For more design inspiration, see:

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190 Responses

Felix November 10th, 2008

Superb list. Thanks for featuring our site.

Henry Jones November 10th, 2008

Thanks for including us here with such great company.

Vandelay Design November 11th, 2008

Felix and Henry,
You’re welcome. Excellent work!

Dor Dan November 11th, 2008

Thanks for including and neat list as well!

Scott Mallinson November 11th, 2008

Many thanks for including my site in the list. There are some great examples that I haven’t seen before.

Andy November 11th, 2008

God, there’s so much talent about!

Do you actually do any work or do you spend your day looking at everybody elses work? ;)

Heiko November 11th, 2008

Thank you very much for featuring my site!
Am really flattered right now :)

Keep up the good postings!

Bram Van der Sype November 11th, 2008

Great post! Very nice for some inspiration!

Andrea Gandino November 11th, 2008

This is truly a great and inspiring list; some stunning examples here, nicely done, thanks for sharing!

Vandelay Design November 11th, 2008

Andy,
Not as much work as I used to. Surfing around is actually part of my job now, it’s pretty cool.

eganm November 11th, 2008

Great stuff. Vandelay is an awesome design reference!!!!!!

Conor November 11th, 2008

Some more great stuff there! Well done for putting together yet another great collection :) I’ve been spreading the word about your blog

Chad November 11th, 2008

Great post… i do agree… I love a good navigation… it sets apart the good and the great…. Fantastic post

Michael Austin November 11th, 2008

Wish we made the list. Maybe next time http://www.michaelaustinproductions.com

Christine Range November 11th, 2008

A very nice collection of navigation menus. Some are unusually interesting but they definitely have an impact. Thanks for the inspiration, I picked up some good ideas for mine.

Timothy November 11th, 2008

Some of these were great. Some not so much. Example: the website Good. Very bland navigation. Could use something more attractive while maintaining simplicity.

Vandelay Design November 11th, 2008

Timothy,
Obviously I disagree since I included Good on this list. Yes, it’s simple, but that appeals to me. Thanks for sharing your opinion though.

Tom Ross November 11th, 2008

Wow, very inspiring stuff. I especially like the Rzepack Pure nav.

Thomas November 12th, 2008

Thanks Steven, Great list

Justin Mather November 12th, 2008

one that i recently found, that i really love is: http://www.weareskylarkin.com/

Hediye November 12th, 2008

Cool, thanx!

Rob Palmer November 12th, 2008

Thankyou muchly for the inclusion!

DPW November 12th, 2008

Great list,

I also feel like another commentator that some of them are a little bland/ almost repetitive

Some of them are quite wonderful intheir unique ways – Carbonica for example

Kelly November 12th, 2008

Great collection and awesome variety. It’s nice to see some very simple plain text menus featured along side the graphic-intense menus.

Soh November 13th, 2008

Thanks again! :-) Beautiful list~

Bryan P. November 16th, 2008

Wow, quite a list there. It must have taken some time to compile.

Webdesign Rosenheim November 17th, 2008

Great Collection! Congratulations!

download punjabi songs November 17th, 2008

nice list… really cool menus.. love all of them … now i just have to learn how to use them … bit new to websites..

Acai Berry November 17th, 2008

Do you offer design services?

Those are extremely elaborate designs..

I would be interested in securing your services. =)

Vandelay Design November 18th, 2008

Acai,
Yes, we do offer design services, but these are not examples of our own work, just exemplary work from various designers.

isabellenewton November 18th, 2008

Great list of navigation examples. I always think that the navigation of the site is one of, if not THE, most important part of the design. At the end of the day, the site can look amazing but if no one can get to the information they want to find they are going to click away and, more than likely, not come back.

fay November 25th, 2008

Thanks for such a great list!
I really enjoy the variety, each site is unique in some way!

burning windmill November 26th, 2008

Some very inspirational sites there :-)

Preisvergleich November 28th, 2008

Thanks a lot for layouts. A new article about buttons would be very useful too.

Jam December 4th, 2008

AMAZING!. Loved most of them. They´re really inspiring. I will be talking about this post in my blog hopping my readers come and have a look. Thanks ;)

dash December 8th, 2008

thank you great inspiration for sure

Micah Slavens December 18th, 2008

thanks for the mention! these are all really great examples — good post.

John December 31st, 2008

I love these lists, but I’ve read an article recently on “Inspiration Overload”. I hope you don’t mine me posting a link. (Remove it if you want).
http://www.viget.com/inspire/overcoming-inspiration-overload/

Basically, it says that there are people (you know who you are) that tend to get overwhelmed by too much design inspiration, and don’t know what to do with it all. In the “good old days” an inspiring piece would appear in the form of a Frazetta painting or an album cover. You really had to seek out the good stuff. Nowadays (is that a word?) we are surrounded by stunning work from countless talented people. The trick is knowing when to stop looking and when to start working!

Vandelay Design December 31st, 2008

John,
No problem posting the link, it’s relevant to the post. Yes, I agree with you.

The trick is knowing when to stop looking and when to start working!

Best Coffee Makers January 1st, 2009

Wow, what a nice collection of navigation menus. A lot of them are quite artistic but the simple ones are cool too.

Alojaweb January 10th, 2009

very good, excellent list, other list but of headers

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/02/01/smashing-header-graphics-contest/

Laufkran January 20th, 2009

Thanks for the cool list. It is very convenient for me! :-)

Jörgs Web Info February 11th, 2009

A really good list, thanks for that one. However, I wonder why you left out the Branford Magazine Template. In my opinion its the best magazine template out there.
But maybe your selection was more into design than functionality?

Vandelay Design February 11th, 2009

Jorgs,
Thanks for the comment. I didn’t include any templates in this list, that’s why Branford wasn’t included.

acai juice March 7th, 2009

Awesome designs. These give me some great inspiration, thanks!

web design romania March 8th, 2009

Great menus. This is a great inspiration

Conor March 10th, 2009

Great list! Thanks for the inspiration :)

I like the menu at the top of this page too :) > http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes/search

Realife Design April 17th, 2009

Amazing sites! Will mine ever be worthy (www.realifedesign.ca)?? lol

Reza Farshbaf April 27th, 2009

Hey! This is a great compilation. Thank you for your nice work

web tasarımı July 15th, 2009

thank you nice sharing.

Bayrak August 26th, 2009

Hey! This is a great compilation. Thank you for your nice work

siemens servisi August 28th, 2009

i like these desins who s designers?

coffee club August 29th, 2009

i really like these… really well done !!

Sensiz October 1st, 2009

thank you nice sharing.

Emoturk October 2nd, 2009

i’ve been looking for this all time.. Oh! Thank u man, so much :) There are perfect.

Web Designer Pakistan October 10th, 2009

A lot of work still needed o this part of web design..

sikiş izle October 13th, 2009

like these desins who s designers?

direk izle October 17th, 2009

Great list! Thanks for the inspiration

ssk emeklilik October 17th, 2009

Thank you very much for featuring my site. A lot of work still needed o this part of web design

araç sorgulama October 18th, 2009

A lot of work still needed o this part of web design..

kilo aldırıcı October 19th, 2009

Hey! This is a great compilation. Thank you for your nice work

Web Site Tasarım October 20th, 2009

Great and inspiring thanks to an archive.

ross October 23rd, 2009

great list of websites I really love the Carbonica navigation!

Erotik Hikaye October 25th, 2009

Great and inspiring thanks to an archive.

rx1 zayıflama hapı October 29th, 2009

A new article about buttons would be very useful too.

siemens servisi November 4th, 2009

thanx for web dsign examples

acai November 17th, 2009

like these desins who s designers?

haber November 21st, 2009

its very nice and amazing.

sikis izlw November 22nd, 2009

thank you nice sharing..:)

Sanalhediye November 24th, 2009

Hey! This is a great compilation. Thank you for your nice work

Program yükle November 25th, 2009

oooo good admin thank you nice

Excellent collection of navigation menu design websites,
I like this Good Very much

Eğitim December 1st, 2009

beautiful themes are waiting for more new ones ;)

sikiş December 2nd, 2009

beautiful themes are waiting for more new ones ;)

frmstar December 4th, 2009

Great stuff. Vandelay is an awesome design reference..

driver indir December 18th, 2009

good thx.

seo December 23rd, 2009

I’m really very useful to follow a long time see this as a blog here Thank you for your valuable information.

sikiş sitesi December 25th, 2009

beautiful themes are waiting for more new ones

lazer merkezleri December 25th, 2009

thank so muchh

Eric Di Bari January 13th, 2010

Great inspiration and designs, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

Sherwin shine January 16th, 2010

Nice and useful article. Thanks for examples.I will work out these information in the next website.

Eric Di Bari January 17th, 2010

Great navigation examples. This blog always has the best web design samples.

Sesli Chat Webcam Sohbet January 19th, 2010

Hey! This is a great compilation. Thank you.

dekorasyon January 27th, 2010

thanks for navigation Menus….

sesli sohbet webcam January 31st, 2010

This blog always has the best web design samples. Thanky you admin

liseli sikiş February 6th, 2010

thanks for navigation menu thanks

sesli sohbet webcam February 11th, 2010

Good Thanks tou admin super.

sesli chat webcam February 13th, 2010

Good Thanks tou admin super Worklight (as I understand it, and I am not any form of expert here), is posited on Secure Widgets. As security ‘though the layers” is going to be an issue with widgets, you know, I think they may be on to something. The next thing that people don’t often realise, is that while consumer widgets are “cool”, enterprise widgets actually save money (you know, in a way that can be measured.

รถมือสอง February 28th, 2010

Good job! THANKS! You guys do a great website, and have some great contents. Keep up the good work.
best regards,

Antique March 16th, 2010

Beautiful menus. Great inspirations!

Jamie April 2nd, 2010

Would be much better if they were more mixes – they were all portfolio feeling. Would love to have seen more of an industry mix.

Vandelay Website Design April 2nd, 2010

Jamie,
I don’t know what you consider “portfolio feeling”, but the collection includes 35 that aren’t portfolios. You may also want to see these two posts if you haven’t already:
- http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/menu-design-part-two/
- http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/navigation-menus-showcase/

John Ryan April 4th, 2010

Some great examples to inspire my creativity!
Many Thanks!

Princo April 8th, 2010

Some great examples to inspire my creativity!
Many Thanks!

Website Design Surrey April 13th, 2010

I love navigation, cool list!

Webdesign Frankfurt April 16th, 2010

Hey,
thanks for sharing. I love the 30elm Navigation. It’s awesome. I’ll try to implement that in my new Website!

Alex

jbmv April 17th, 2010

Some of them are a little boring, but I really like some of these menus.

faiz oranlari April 17th, 2010

wow.. very.. This is truly a great and inspiring list; some stunning examples here, nicely done, thanks for sharing!

Some great examples to inspire my creativity!

Thank you.

Some great examples to inspire my creativity!
Many Thanks!

Vladimir May 11th, 2010

Good set of menus, nice and useful :)

yeni albümler May 16th, 2010

Some great examples to inspire my creativity!

Evan Skuthorpe June 2nd, 2010

some great inspiration for navigation designs here thanks.

web design June 3rd, 2010

Awesome! I can’t wait to give this a try!
Great stuff, I can wait to see the resultats on my work, some are for fun, but some others will be very useful, thank you

cigersiz June 3rd, 2010

These give me some great inspiration, thanks

sikiş June 13th, 2010

I love the 30elm Navigation. It’s awesome. I’ll try to implement that in my new Website!

diziizle June 14th, 2010

This is truly a great and inspiring list; some stunning examples here, nicely done, thanks for sharing

microblog June 22nd, 2010

Great menus. This is a great inspiration

Andrew Barbara July 2nd, 2010

Just been looking at Bridge 55′s site today, knew i’d seen their site somewhere before! Really impressed with it aesthetically.

Sesli Sohbet BK July 5th, 2010

Good list, thanks for that one. However, I wonder why you left out the Branford Magazine Template.

Sesli,
There are now examples included from templates or themes, just custom designs.

accident claims July 7th, 2010

Loving the carbonica and remedy drive menus. Some work must have gone into compliling this list!!! five thumbs up! ;o])

Nottingham News July 8th, 2010

Thanks for the share, Mint looks like it tastes fresh and cool

SesliChatSiteleri July 21st, 2010

Just been looking at Bridge 55’s site today, knew i’d seen their site somewhere before! Really impressed with it aesthetically…

pimapen September 13th, 2010

Great menus. This is a great inspiration

plastik October 8th, 2010

Thanks for the share, Mint looks like it tastes fresh and cool

Video Sesli Sohbetbk October 17th, 2010

Been looking at Bridge 55′s site today, knew i’d seen their site somewhere before! Really impressed with it aesthetically.

Seminyak resorts October 19th, 2010

Great collection and awesome variety. It’s nice to see some very simple plain text menus featured along side the graphic-intense menus.

Thanks for the share, Mint looks like it tastes fresh and cool

Wow!!! i found the new, nice and beautiful fonts to make my project.
Thanks for sharing this.

Web design hull November 25th, 2010

Nice collection of menus, great inspiration!

carbon12 January 21st, 2011

Great set of menus! I’m always amazed how much a good menu adds to a design.

lpdesignhelp March 25th, 2011

Such a diversity of designs highlights how important a strong, well-designed navigation is to a cohesive website. Great navigation drives the website. If it’s not clear how to navigate throughout the site, viewers will not stay long enough to figure it out. A great collection of navigation for inspiration.

Paarth March 26th, 2011

very nice collection of cool CSS menus, thanks for sharing

Atif April 30th, 2011

Excellent collection of Cool CSS menus, thanks

Marshall Boya June 21st, 2011

Thanks for the share, Mint looks like it tastes fresh and cool

Madih-ullah January 9th, 2012

Thank you for sharing such wonderful menus, i was looking for such.

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