People often comment on the main menu navigation on our website. It is designed to be different, unique and yet functional. That was very carefully calibrated to be edgy yet obvious.

Stepping away from the usual in navigation schemes is dangerous.

People have expectations on where to find your menu and what it will look like.

As soon as you do something different, you run the risk that you may completely lose your visitor. Because they didn't immediately see how to navigate the site, they are gone.

Here's a collection of unusual navigation schema that prove my point.

26 Websites With Unusual Navigation

Different? Innovative? Yes.

Fun? Creative? Interesting? You bet!

And yet almost all of them should be considered complete failures because they are going to confuse the visitor.

Make the menu fit the look of the website, make it interesting and appropriate.

But satisfy your visitors' expectations. To do otherwise is to operate at your peril.