Techniques, systems, and methods for allowing a user to select amongst different collection views and to animate the transition from one collection view to another. To select a different collection view, the user may provide a certain gesture on the display screen which causes the items displayed in the current collection view to transition in an animated fashion to a new collection view selected by the particular gesture. The particular type of animation between different collection views depends upon the manner in which the items in each collection view are defined in their respective layouts and the manner that facilitates a relatively seamless transition of the items from one layout to another layout.