The most common practice for creating a menu is to start with an unordered list of links.

download menu samples

You can see that the following three examples are essentially the same list. Yet in each case, the stylesheet creates a very different looking menu. In this first example, the styling creates a simple but appealing horizontal menu.

The second example provides a more modern version. Both versions can be downloaded and easily implemented.

The third example provides an interesting inverted sliding door technique.

By taking the same list and implementing three different stylesheets, the result was three very different looking menus. Many more freely available menu stylesheets can be download online. See the links section.