In a step away from the traditional topic landing page, The Washington Post is using a layout called “The Grid” to collect the latest coverage around the Republican National Convention.

The Grid features, as you may have guessed, a grid of content that includes a stream of articles, listing of events, tweets, photos and video. When you first land on the grid, you see editor’s picks, but you can filter down by news organization, politician, delegate and content type. There’s a live listing of latest headlines and a chat  component for readers to weigh in. At certain times, they were also streaming live events using a YouTube live player.

It reminds me a lot of The New York Times’ dashboard for covering the Oscars, signaling a continued trend toward one-off, standalone apps as a way of following data and news topics. One of my favorite parts of the grid is that it’s fully responsive, meaning it works beautifully if you open it up on your mobile phone or iPad.

Thanks to the option of using filters, readers can quickly find the information they want to see about the convention (customization!), though I wish it also included a search function. It’s also easy to see, at a glance, what you’ve missed since the last time you checked in. This is a tool for both the political junkie and the casual observer.

What do you think of WaPo’s grid?