Material Design (codename Quantum Paper) is a design language developed by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

in 2014. Expanding on the "cards" UI that debuted in Google Now, Material Design uses more grid-based layouts, responsive animations and transitions, padding, and depth effects such as lighting and shadows. Google announced the initial version of Material Design on June 25, 2014, at the 2014 Google I/O conference. The purpose of developing Material Design was to create a novel visual language, synthesizing the classic principles of good design with the innovation and possibility of technology and science. Head designer Matías Duarte explained that "unlike real paper, our digital material expands and reforms intelligently. Material has physical surfaces and edges. Seams and shadows provide meaning about what you can touch." Material Design is based on paper-and-ink as well as skeuomorphic interaction concepts, but implementation happens in a more advanced manner. In 2018, Google revamped the language (Material Design 2), providing more flexibility for designers to create custom themes with varying geometry, colors, and typography. In 2021, a further evolution of the design language, titled Material You (Material Design 3), was unveiled. In 2025, the next evolution of the design language, titled "Material 3 Expressive", was unveiled.

Implementation

Material Design have been gradually extended throughout Google's array of web and mobile products, providing a consistent experience across all platforms and applications. Google has also released

application programming interface An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that des ...

s (APIs) for third-party developers to incorporate the design language into their applications. The canonical

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

implementation of Material Design for web application user interfaces is called Material Web.

Updates

Material Design 2

After the 2018 revamp, Google began redesigning most of their apps based on an updated set of principles and guidelines dubbed "Material Design 2", which appeared on Android Pie. It provided a larger focus on customization of the basic Material Design components to adapt to the branding of the products in which it is being used. The updated guidelines further heavily emphasizes white space, rounded corners, colorful icons, and bottom navigation bars. Google began utilizing a special size-optimized version of their proprietary Product Sans font called Google Sans.

Material Design 3 (Material You)

At Google I/O in May 2021, Google announced a new concept on Android 12 known as "Material You" (also known as "Material Design 3"), emphasizing increased animation, larger buttons, and the ability for custom UI themes to be generated from the user's wallpaper. Material You was gradually rolled out to various Google apps on older Android versions in the following months, and acted as a major focus on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro smartphone series.

Material 3 Expressive

At The Android Show: I/O Edition in May 2025, Google announced "Material 3 Expressive" for Android 16 and Wear OS 6. This version of Material Design shares similarities to its predecessor but has increased animation and is more colorful and modern.

References

External links

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Material Design 1
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Material Design 2
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Material Design 3
{{Google LLC 2014 software Design languages Google Graphical user interfaces Touch user interfaces