Material Design was announced in 2014 as a cohesive design language for both first and third party web and mobile apps. Google is now expanding Material to be a “system that supports the principles of good design and strengthens communication and productivity” with a new suite of tools and open source projects (via The Verge).
Five years ago Google set out on an ambitious project to create a font family that encompasses the 800 languages and 110,000 characters found in the Unicode standard. Now available under open source, Noto’s aim is to get rid of the blank boxes that commonly appear when a computer or website isn’t able to display text.
The Material Design Guidelines are considered a living document by Google’s designers and receive constant updates and new additions. To help with their recent guidelines on responsive UI, Google has released a web-based tool to see what a website looks like on various devices and at different resolutions.
[slideshow]
Google launched a revamped homepage, but it is still in the trial phase and only a limited number of users have access to the new design. Meanwhile, some experts and lawmakers are claiming Google’s recent face lift intends to promote more of the company’s businesses without cluttering the homepage.
The website’s redesign has undergone various changes since its initial debut over a month ago. The current version omits the black menu bar that runs horizontal along the top of the website, and it is now replaced by a gray Google logo. Upon clicking the new graphic, seven services under the search engine appear with an option to view 13 more services.
The core seven services in the trial design are Google Plus, Search, Images, Maps, YouTube, News, Gmail and Documents. The “More” tab below the vertical menu reveals options for Calendar, Translator, Mobile, Books, Music, Offers, Wallet, Shopping, Blogger, Reader, Finance, Photos, and Videos.
Google users can also change the background image of their homepage with the trial design, and they can access iGoogle or their Google Plus notification center and Settings options from the main search page.
