making categories my header navigation?

click here to see the site: http://www.lamarwake.com/

I want to make my category links my main header navigation buttons.. (articles, photos, videos, events, and gear)..

Which would be very easy, but I need to make each category page customized (with different main photo and content) and of course I want to keep the category posts for that category on that page after the extra content I’m adding in…

I know how to customize the “category.php” file but that would turn all of the category pages into that style and would be pointless. What I need to figure is how to customize each category page seperatly.

Can anyone guide me in the right direction???