Task 3 - Research into horizontal navigation bars

Throughout the previous tasks I have experimented a little bit by changing the colour of the navigation bar. But before I went any further I wanted to carry out some research into navigation bars to see how it could be made more of a feature, rather than just been there.   

On this website below i found a number of intresting examples of horizontal navigation bars: 
http://sixrevisions.com/design-showcase-inspiration/50-stylish-navigation-menus-for-design-inspiration/

I picked out a couple of the designs that I though were most intresting.

This is quite a simple nav bar however I really like how well it works with the page. I quite like how it's transparent and how you can still see some of the background image. This is quite interesting and I think helps it blend in more to the page. I also quite like the shape of the buttons how they are rounded, I think it makes it look very sleek and tidy. (http://www.anderbose.com/

I chose this example because i really like the use of the roll over image to show that it is a link. It is quite simple but it really alerts the viewer that this is in fact a link. I also like the use of the grey strip along the bottom this really helps separate the nav bar from the webpage in contrast to the above example that blends in more. However I think both examples work and are appropriate to each design. (http://www.netdreams.co.uk/)

I really like the use of imagery for this nav bar. this is most likley a repeated image, hoever it looks very effective. Also the drop down shadow helps to make this a real feature on the page. I also think it is intresting how it has a drop down menu to allow for easier navigation around this site as it appears this website will have many pages. I do not think that this will be appropriate for my web site as i am planning for it to be quite small, but it is a feature to consider if ever designer larger website. (http://www.skialpine.com/)

I again quite like the use of a roll over image here. This image really fits in with the theme of the website. Also below is a second nav bar, kind of like the drop down menu on the preivious example this aids navigation around quite large websites with many pages. (http://www.cognigencorp.com/index.php/cognigen/our_services/)

I really like the creativity of this navigation bar. I really like how it is slightly slanted and not a traditional horizontal nav bar. (The link to this website went dead so i can not accsess this page to see how well the navigation works, but i really do like this from an asthic point of veiw.)

Again i really like the asthtic quality to this nav bar. I think the hand written writting really gives it a more personal feel. For this nav bar they simply change the colour of the text to grey to show the link highlighted. This is quite a simple yet effective way of showing this. (http://www.thomasprior.co.uk/)

I feel that i have established some intresting features of nav bars through this research. However some of my favourite features have been rather simple but are very effective in communicating things like links for example.