Carousels are not only lots of fun to look at, they are also one of the most efficient ways to showcase important contents at prime areas of your website.

So go ahead and spice up your online playground with some merry-go-round! There is no magic number of contents to feature but we reckon 3 - 5 rocking horses should do the trick.

Here are some of the more creative and inspiring ways to do the spin!

Jay Hollywood

Clever use of transparent PNG and shadows to create the floating effect. Pretty awesome to view the whole site on a widescreen computer.

Nealite

Kind of the same concept as "Jay Hollywood" but a more graphically & metaphorically intense version.

However in this case, i prefer to view it on a non-wide screen as it looks a little too overwhelming with widescreen on and have all the graphic elements at the side screaming from the corner of your eyes. I like the way the graphics are jutting out of the baseline though.

iPhone

Great usage of the on/off glassy button effect not to mention they look so yummy I could eat them all up. :P

Who knew great design can make one hungry? Only Apple can. :P

Apple Store

An interesting way to use horizontal scroll bar to categorize the product lines. However when I click on the arrows, the scroll bar tends to overshot the category text and makes it looks rather weird.

Champion Sound

Vertical for a change! Very smooth and slick graphics and animation for the navigation and appropriate icons to tie in with the main banners too!

Buffalo

Carousels not only moves side ways, the rocking hoses goes up and down too! That's what this site decided to do for their carousel.

It's refreshing for a change and i just love how the graphic elements are protruding out into the green zone, giving it a certain depth to the other wise very clean and simple layout.

Deluge Studios

I just love the way this whole website looks. Everything just seems to be prefect right down to the pixels. What a great way to showcase the portfolio!

Sketchen

This site takes carousel to a whole new level! The whole site is literally merry-go-round-ing your computer screen! It's definitely interesting but i don't really dig the submenu carousel effect.

Martha Stewart

Love the tabs! Makes one want to click and not only that, the user know what they are clicking into! Needless to say, I went straight for the Lemon Desserts :P

Food Network

There are several ways you can navigate this carousel.

1) By clicking on the photos
2) Sliding the horizontal scrollbar
3) clicking on the arrows.

It would have looked more elegant without the arrow and scrolls. But overall, this is a really neat way of showing more links and unlimited contents.