The Zurb team are always building great things, and their latest creation is no exception. It’s a new concept which they’ve added to Foundation, their responsive, rapid prototyping framework for web designers and developers. The off-canvas layout is named such because it takes advantage of screen real estate by hiding the content to show a menu, for instance. Think of apps like the new Facebook app, Sparrow, and Path, one of the first apps to implement this technique. From the blog post:

We adapted or created four patterns to use with Foundation, each of which feature interesting layouts you can download from the ZURB Playground and start using or hacking on. Each of them has a very specific small-device layout, as well as a similarly specific larger device layout (tablets or desktops).

What makes this creation by the Zurb team so unique is that it works so well inside the browser, while retaining loading speeds and adherence to solid responsive design standards. The layouts also use the latest HTML, CSS, and JavaScript techniques available, and they’re compatible with all modern browsers, so you can use these features today.

If you’re building a responsive site, and want to give mobile users a native experience, download these off-canvas layouts from Zurb. I’m going to use them in my next project, and you should too.