It’s hard to remember now, but once upon a time, Google was terrible at design. Android was ugly. Google sites were ugly. And the company lacked a serious industrial design program. But in 2014, Google revealed a unified approach to design to help fix it all. Called Material Design, it reimagined all of Google’s apps with a new visual metaphor of digital paper and ink. Ugly pages were replaced by clear, clean cards. Supporting animations were simple and effective. Google got design, and shared this design language with any developer who wanted to adopt it.
The problem was that the language didn’t leave much room for expression and creativity. And nearly a decade later, Google VP of design Matias Duarte looks back at the language he helped create, and sees its shortcomings. “The material metaphor was maybe too good, and the paper has come to dominate our interfaces,” says Duarte. “They are consistent…but they’ve gotten a little stale, boring, too tied to a modernist same-ism that is spread everywhere.” That’s especially problematic today, as design is trending maximal and customizable while Google has perfected the stoic and functional.
Material You preserves the generous white space and visual simplicity you’re used to with Material Design. But it’s filled with more dynamic animations, and it’s less reliant on a strict icon and interface grid. Most of all, the new Android will be easily customizable. (That’s the “You” part.) Think of Material You as a coded, Google design consultant. But the user is still the creative director.
The system offers unprecedented control over the contrast, size, and line width of text and icons, so the interface can feel as airy or as high contrast as you want or need. Then when you set a wallpaper, software will automatically analyze its color, and offer you several custom color palettes that reskin your interface however you like.
Sebastian Bauer, creative director on Android, has dubbed Material You the “humanist antidote” to Google’s prescriptive Material Design standards. And while Material You will launch on Android 12, it will work its way across the entire Google ecosystem of products over the coming year.
More complicated than it looks
Customizable operating systems are nothing new, of course. The original Macintosh let you choose from a collection of different wallpapers and fonts. Early versions of Windows let you hand-pick colors for every element of the UI.
Duarte has big dreams for Material You. Imagine an interface in which every component is a true 3D object, affected by real light, and built upon parameters that can be instantly updated. As Duarte speaks, I picture this maximalist iPhone app that launched earlier this year. “We’re not there!” he says. “I’m trying to paint a picture of where this goes.”
A customizable skin, for expression or need
Part of the value proposition of Material You is also enabling a more accessible design system that accommodates everyone from the sight-impaired to the power user who wants to customize everything.
Nothing articulates the value of Material You more than the way it treats color palettes. While I’ve yet to try it myself, Google’s plan to build your entire phone’s color scheme from your wallpaper is a brilliant idea. That’s because, while almost no one changes the defaults of their software, Google says 60% of people update their wallpaper—and the images are often highly personal pictures of families and experiences.
