25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration

By Steven Snell | Published March 3rd, 2010 in Inspiration

Navigation is a critical element to any website. Mega menus are a current trend that take drop down menus a step further in attempt to make it easier for visitors to navigate through a large site.

In this post we’ll showcase 25 examples of mega menus in use. For more, see this post from our archives: 25 Examples of Mega Menus in Web Design.

Converse

Converse

Nine Fashion

Nine Fashion

Callaway

Callaway

Toys R Us

Toys R Us

Estee Lauder

Estee Lauder

Columbia Sportswear

Columbia Sportswear

Portero Luxury

Portero Luxury

The White House

The White House

Pure Grips

Pure Grips

Staples

Staples

American Eagle Outfitters

American Eagle Outfitters

DC Shoes

DC Shoes

Duchy of Cornwall Nursery

Duchy of Cornwall Nursery

Lowe’s

Lowe's

Seattle Sounders

Seattle Sounders

TheOutNet.com

TheOutNet.com

Puma

Puma

Zumiez

Zumiez

Sunglass Hut

Sunglass Hut

Sears

Sears

Bonfire Snowboarding

Bonfire Snowboarding

Lipsy

Lipsy

Republic

Republic

Matalan

Matalan

The Archer Group

The Archer Group

Tutorials:

if you’re interested in learning how to create a mega menu. these two tutorials can help.

How to Make a Mega Drop Down Menu

How to Make a Mega Drop Down Menu

Mega Drop Down Menus with CSS & jQuery

Mega Drop Down Menus with CSS & jQuery

For more design inspiration please see:


34 Comments
  1. Soam on March 3rd, 2010

    Hi, any idea, what scripts do they use ?
    I have used Sohtanaka , but need a change now. Cant use it always for all the projects. So, any idea , what those other websites use ?

  2. [...] 25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration March 3rd, 2010 [...]

  3. Amberly | Web Designer on March 3rd, 2010

    Amazing share.. I gotta try so much from this list..
    You saved me a lot of time.. Looks amazing Portero Luxury to me

  4. Steven Snell on March 3rd, 2010

    Soam,
    You could check the source code of those sites to see what you find, but I would think most of them are using a custom script.

  5. Darryl on March 3rd, 2010

    These are great menu examples, but quite honestly they do little to inspire (personally speaking). My advice, if you really want to get inspired to design a new menu system -or anything else for that matter, try some of these great techniques:

    http://zenhabits.net/2010/03/little-inspiration-guide/

    Work with inspired people – one of the best ways to stay inspired is to work with creative, energetic, positive people.

    Read daily – varied things, from blogs to magazines to books of all kinds.
    Get outside – nature is one of the biggest inspirations, and you’ll miss it if you’re inside all day.

    Talk with new people – they’ll always expose you to new and interesting things, if you’re open to it.

    Break out of your routine – see things from a different perspective. Take a new route home. Go to a new restaurant. Visit someplace new in your area.

    Find time for silence – it’s more inspiring than you might think. Unfortunately, not enough of us do it.

    Exercise – or at least get moving. It helps the blood to circulate, and gets ideas moving around. My most inspired thoughts come during runs.

  6. JC on March 3rd, 2010

    Great samples guys…I am always looking for sites to send to new clients so they can see different menu styles and find something they like. This will help!

  7. Snapey on March 3rd, 2010

    wrong url in the introduction?

  8. [...] Mega menus are the way of the future. You are no longer restricted to plain navs, or restrictive and annoying multi-level dropdown navigations. Mega menus allow you to intuitively and creatively control the user experience making it easier for your visitors to find what they’re loooking for. Here’s a great article with a showcase of 25 mega menus for your inspiration on Designm.ag. Check it out: http://designm.ag/inspiration/mega-menus-showcase/ [...]

  9. Steven Snell on March 3rd, 2010

    Snapey,
    Oops! Thanks for pointing that out, it’s fixed now.

  10. vicki on March 3rd, 2010

    You should include http://www.thefwa.com in this round-up as well, they recently launched an outstanding revamp of their site that makes good use of a large menu @ the top to navigate through all of their content.

  11. Inside the Webb on March 3rd, 2010

    Incredibly amazing menus here! I found a really great menu the other day on Mashable, they have some great navigation and for their style of blog it fits perfectly.

  12. TIM on March 3rd, 2010

    These are some great examples and a good catch on a new trend.

    I looked at the code on a couple of sites and they are pure CSS. Gotta figure out how they do it, they look great!

  13. Erik Goens on March 3rd, 2010

    Thanks for the resources. A lot of nice designs out there.

    We recently redesigned our navigation and thought I would contribute to these comments and resources:

    http://www.indystar.com/colts

    Feel free to let us know what you think.

  14. kyle on March 3rd, 2010

    IGN.com also uses mega-dropdowns to good effect.

  15. Xcellence IT on March 3rd, 2010

    Xcellent Inspiring collections…

    Thanks for sharing this one great resources with us…

  16. Rich McNabb on March 4th, 2010

    Great post thanks – I always struggle with navigation designs :)

  17. Ovi Farcas on March 4th, 2010

    Converse has a very fancy menu. I wonder what jquery plugins they use. Is there a jquery additional I can use for my own projects without stealing :) ?

    Regards

  18. [...] 25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration – DesignM.ag – Navigation is a critical element to any website. Mega menus are a current trend that take drop down menus a step further in attempt to make it easier for visitors to navigate through a large site. [...]

  19. [...] Galerie de 25 mega-menus dropdown [...]

  20. GDevelop WebDesing on March 4th, 2010

    Rich menus are a trend now. And i think it’s a good one.
    Offering visitors a detailed menu with a lot of hints can dramatically reduce search.

    Thanks for collecting and sharing.

  21. [...] 25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration [...]

  22. Oliver Cardiff on March 4th, 2010

    Very inspirational post. All my menus seem to look the same and I could use some fresh ideas. It’s great that you also included some tutorials to help us create them. Thanks for sharing.

  23. [...] 25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration [...]

  24. [...] 25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration [...]

  25. web tasarim sitesi on March 6th, 2010

    very inspirational list.
    thank you.

  26. [...] 25 Mega Menus for Your Design Inspiration [...]

  27. Hoxxy on March 8th, 2010

    Great list of menus, I think I like Converse

    Thanks for sharing

  28. Bart on April 21st, 2010

    Thanks for including us (The Archer Group) in your list.

  29. Urviho on May 25th, 2010

    Nice tips :) Thanks

  30. vuitton on August 8th, 2010

    I wll probably start with a Comfortable chair and a plant. Thanks for sharing.

  31. Hurda on August 20th, 2010

    thanks you

  32. How do you? on August 24th, 2010

    Great set of menus thanks so much for the inspiration