This week we’re featuring designs that use buildings to represent parts of their site’s navigation. Does this interaction design technique make browsing around more effective? Let’s find out.

A short list of websites where the & symbol is the star. Grab some inspiration from everyone’s favorite typographic mark.

I’m a much bigger fan of this effect than straight-up parallax: using fixed backgrounds and illusions done by layering images to produce clever animations, all triggered by scrolling the page.

There’s a bit of rivalry going on between native apps and web apps but the best ones of the former will still go out of their way to build a site to promote them. And more often than not, there’s a design pattern they usually follow: a prominently featured photo of a hand holding a phone (usually the iPhone) with the app loaded.

Our featured designs for the week put typography first, using very little imagery until absolutely necessary.

We’re still looking at color schemes this week, but instead of a single hue it’s several, and actually the foundations at that.

A certain shade of orange is huge these days, almost as huge as and goes hand in hand with the flat design trend. Less of the zesty citrus, more of the corals and roses in what appears to be an extension of the warm, handcrafted feel, while still being bright enough to catch your attention.

Can you believe the number of sites dedicated to curating free stuff from Dribbble? Let’s see if they’re as well designed as the goodies up for grabs.

Photographic headers are popular design elements, and few subjects are more utilized than mountain views. Is it because of the height and expanse that stir possibilities of greatness that are just waiting to be accomplished, or maybe already have been? We’ve featured illustrated ones before, but now you’re getting the real, picture-perfect deal.

Several designy, creative people have put up some interesting side projects which revolve around pitting one thing against the other, from cute to sporty to illustrated. How do they compare and contrast? How do they get spectators to participate? Let’s find out!

Our featured designs for the week defy the usual perspective and place their elements on an isometric grid. We’ve featured the isometric look before, but none of them were so bold as to display the blueprints on which the elements lay, and it makes you perceive that change in positioning even better.

You may have heard about the “flat” design trend gaining a lot of buzz these days, and while it’s not exactly a new style, new techniques and a clean break from shadows and gradients encourage us to focus on lean, clean, and the stuff that matters.