The coloured top navigation will not take the focus away, people are too used to navigation areas for that. It will help them however to separate the areas of t

The coloured top navigation will not take the focus away, people are too used to navigation areas for that. It will help them however to separate the areas of the page. It's just very strange for you as you are too used to the existing design :) However, the contrast between the inactive menu elements and the background might be a bit low. And sure, there is a visual branding part in play here as well that you might want to think about a bit longer. Something else than a black bar could work better in that regard, maybe white with a small border and a shadow below? Something a bit more in line with the current design will ease the transition. But I think it absolutely works a lot better than the current whitespacy solution. Maybe ask a few people more for their impression? I'd be very surprised if it does not work better for most.