The latest updates to the Material Design Guidelines include a new section on offline states—to help you better customize your app for users without internet access. Plus updated guidance for Android Oreo on creating adaptive icons and categorizing notifications into channels, and a section on how settings are grouped, titled, and styled. Find out more by visiting the "What's new" section of the Material Design Guidelines.

Read more about the design behind each of these outstanding apps: goo.gl/6wrKMs

We’re inviting everyone with an internet connection to engage with the creative energy and ideas of this year’s SPAN Pittsburgh conference. Not only are we livestreaming two days of talks, panels, and conversations, but for the first time we’re giving livestream-watchers a free downloadable SPAN Livestream Viewing Kit to make your viewing experience even better. The kit includes information about how to watch the SPAN livestream, tips for hosting your own viewing party, a printable speaker schedule, plus details on our exclusive (shhhh!) livestream swag giveaway.

Download the SPAN 2017 Livestream Viewing Kit and tune in on Sep 14-15.

Stay tuned to @googledesign for #SPAN17 updates!

Check out this roundup of our newest and most popular Medium articles: Learn how UX designers can navigate the new practices of human-centered machine learning (HCML) to make better AI and ML products; Try out new UX motion design tools Sketch2AE and Inspector Spacetime; Read about how one Googler designs UX for developers; Find out how to design new adaptive icons for Android O; Get an inside look at how Google designers adapt Material guidelines for Inbox and Keep.

Robots are creatures, not things. What is the verb of architecture? Does data have a blind spot? These are just some of the ideas we'll be exploring at SPAN Pittsburgh, Sep 14-15. Sign up now for a spot—we have a limited number of tickets available through open registration.

SPAN Pittsburgh will feature the work of local thinkers and makers, plus presentations by Madeline Gannon, Golan Levin, Molly Wright Steenson, Luis von Ahn, and many more. Visit g.co/span17 for more information and stay tuned to #SPAN17 for the latest.

We're also pleased to announce additional SPAN events this fall in Newcastle-Gateshead, UK, and Mexico City, MX. We'll be updating the SPAN website with additional information and speakers in the coming weeks.

Dive into Surface magazine's technology issue with an in-depth cover story on our VP of Design Matias Duarte. Interviewed at the Google offices in Mountain View, California, Matias talks about his path to UX, the wildly popular computer game he designed in college, and his steadfast commitment to design. We've gathered a few of our favorite moments below:  

On his approach to design at Google
"We're treating the process of design as a design problem. I want the design process to be really transparent. I want it to be backed by science, and I want it to be continually reflected upon."

On studying art and computer science at the same time
"I'd be doing studio hours, painting on these massive canvases, and then head over to the computer lab and be working on a ray tracer."

On his childhood
"I grew up naturally becoming aware of politics and the sociological ramifications of everything, from the design of houses to the design of economic policy."

Read the full cover story over at Surface. 

This week, the Google Brain team unveiled PAIR: the People + AI Research Initiative. The program is devoted to advancing the research and design of people-centric AI systems. A pillar of the research is Human-Centered Machine Learning, which combines design thinking with AI to open up new opportunities for applications, and new ways to help users.

Subscribe here to get the Google Design Newsletter delivered directly to your inbox.

Are you working on a product that exemplifies Material Design? Or an app that brings #MaterialDesign to life? We’re now accepting Material Design Award nominations…from you! Nominate yourself or your team for a 2017 Material Design Award and help us highlight the best designs from our talented community of designers, developers, and makers.

Categories for nomination include: brand expressiveness, interaction design, platform adaptiveness, and innovation. We’re looking for products that push the boundaries of Material Design to create brilliant, meaningful experiences, no matter the platform. If your product fits that description, start by filling out a nomination form—and if you need some inspiration, read all about the winning apps from 2015 and 2016.

The deadline for nominations is July 27, 2017 and Material Design Award winners will be announced on Google Design in September.

Not sure which navigation patterns are right for your Android app? Having trouble organizing destinations for your nav drawer? Want to know how bottom nav and tab bars can work together to better guide your users?

Join members of the Material Design, Design Relations, and Material UX Engineering teams on Tuesday, July 11 from 10:00–11:30AM PDT for the first ever #AskMaterial session on the complex topic of navigation. We’ll be on hand to answer all your nav-related questions—so don’t be shy. Follow along or submit your queries to @materialdesign ahead of time using #AskMaterial.

If you need to brush up on your Android navigation knowledge before Tuesday, check out this handy primer on Android Navigation. See you there!

We've got a fresh, new look! Now it's easier than ever to find the articles, news, and tools you love right from the homepage. Take a few minutes to explore our new story collections for in-depth insights on everything from branding to SPAN, and visit our new and improved jobs page to find out what it's really like to work with us. We've got a few more surprises in store, so sign up for our newsletter and keep an eye on design.google.

Check out a handful of our latest and greatest Medium articles: Learn how Google redesigned over 2,000 emoji to make them more expressive than ever; Watch the top design talks from I/O 2017 in our Definitive Design Guide; Get an inside look at Seoul’s vibrant design scene from four of the city’s top studios; Find out what happens when you lock 35 developers and designers in a room for a 3-day design sprint; Read a UX designer’s top tips and tools for getting started in the industry.

Making Material just got easier. The new Material Components site features a library of components and expanded documentation that let you build easily for Android, iOS, and the web using open-source code. The components are regularly updated by a team of engineers and designers to follow the latest Material Design guidelines, ensuring well-crafted implementations that meet development standards such as internationalization and accessibility support. Material Components make it easy to develop rich user experiences using Material Design, and you can pick and choose which components to add to your app or website—Material Design buttons, menus, cards, ripples, and dialogs to name just a few. Check out all the components and documentation: material.io/components

For the latest news or to contribute to the project, visit Material Components on GitHub and follow @materialdesign.

Whether you're dabbling in Millennial Pink or refining an existing color scheme, the new Material Design Color Tool makes it easy to create, share, and apply color palettes to a sample UI across a range of Material Design components. You can also use the tool to test the accessibility of your product’s text and color combinations using WCAG legibility standards.

In addition to the Color Tool, today's release includes updated Material Design guidance on text fields, a new section on text field boxes, and added resources for guidance on right-to-left icons. See what's new.

Follow @materialdesign for the latest news and updates

What do inclusivity, virtual spaces, and ethics have to do with design? Everything. Introducing Design Is [...], a monthly speaker series on the future of design and creativity. Each public talk is centered on a theme—human, inclusive, immersive—and the series will highlight a broad range of perspectives on everything from human-centered design to VR and ethics.

Design Is [...] kicks off today in Google's San Francisco office with VUI Design Lead Nandini Stocker. Today's event is full, but you can follow coverage of the series on Medium for details on upcoming speakers, video (posted two weeks after each event), and information on how to RSVP for future talks in SF.

Put a little spring in your design step with the fifth edition of our Google Design newsletter. We kick off this latest issue with a look back at our 2016 design highlights–reimagined into a design "care package" of publications, stickers, and other items–before springing forward to explore the future of digital interfaces, new Material Design case studies, upcoming events, 5 Things To Love Right Now, and much more.

Subscribe here to get the Google Design Newsletter delivered directly to your inbox.

Last year, Google launched Assistant, a conversational interface that responds to voice requests with actions like launching an app, playing music, or displaying context-aware search results. Assistant was first released on just Pixel phones and Google Home, but will soon be available to hundreds of millions additional users—a huge development in the rapidly expanding world of Voice User Interface design.

At Mobile World Congress, the team announced that the latest version of Assistant will soon be available on Android phones running Marshmallow or Nougat, with high-res screens, as well as LG’s new flagship G6 phone, which will roll out later this year.

This is all in addition to the announcement earlier this year that VUIs will also be integrated into cars and TVs in the coming months. Read more about the rollout.

Material Components are now public! Developed by a core team of Google engineers and UX designers, Material Components help developers implement the Material Design guidelines across Android, iOS, and the web. Preview, contribute, and collaborate: material.io/components.

Updated Material Design guidelines including new sections on best practices for platform adaptation, app shortcut icons, help and feedback for your users, plus updates to the bi-directionality and accessibility sections are now available. Brush up on what's new.

Read the latest edition of our Google Design newsletter for a peek inside Pixel's design details, more Material news, and another installment of 5 Things To Love Right Now. Not a subscriber? Sign up!

Conversations on talent, interaction design, collaboration, and technology by Khoi Vinh, Keller Easterling, Paul Ford, and Julia Zeltser, among others. Workshops on design collaboration, human-centered design, handmade computers, and design writing.

Conversations on everything from Processing and robotics to production design, with Casey Reas, Peter Shire, Jessie Kawata, Shannon Ebner, and many more. Workshops on type design, design writing, and making by hand and eye.

Our list of the best recently published Medium reads:

A designer and product manager share the story of how 63 new emoji—with a focus on gender empowerment and fair gender representation—make their way into your phone. Read more

A Google Design intern discusses his research after a summer designing for autism. Read more

A visual designer unpacks the redesign of the Chrome desktop, which rolled out in September. Read more

Bob Dylan in the news. Last week, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature; Ben Davies recently argued for his recognition as a UX sage. Read more

Today, we're proud to announce the winners of the second annual Material Design Awards. Recognizing best-in-class designs from around the community, each award highlights a specific aspect of Material Design across five categories: Brand Infusion, Charming Engagement, Creative Navigation, Expressive Layouts, Focused Efficiency. The five winners will be honored at #SPAN16 in LA on October 27.

Get to know our 2016 Material Design Award winners, and read more about the design behind each of these outstanding apps.

Conversations on machine learning and neural networks, start-up culture, ikebana, and type design, with Deyan Sudjic, Eiko Nagase, Keiichi Tanaami, Mariya Suzuki, and many more. Workshops on pop-up portraiture, and game design.

The latest version of the Material Design Guidelines is now available in Japanese—including an introduction to Material Design principles, motion guidance, accessibility considerations, and much more. Visit material.google.com/jp to download PDFs of the Material Design Guidelines in Japanese.

Related: On 10/6, we're hosting SPAN Tokyo. You can follow all the talks and conversations as-they-happen via our livestream.

For the third installment of our Google Design Newsletter, we focus on fonts. Read more on the new Google Fonts redesign (plus other complementary type-related happenings), get to know what's new on Google Design, and get excited for #SPAN16. We're pleased to announce that we'll be livestreaming both SPAN Tokyo on 10/6 and SPAN LA on 10/27, so that people everywhere can enjoy SPAN. Sign up to receive livestream updates in your inbox and join the conversation at #SPAN16.

Subscribe to the Google Design Newsletter

Check out the new Google Fonts, then go behind-the-scenes to read (and watch) our story on making the directory a better design resource for everyone. With our refresh of Google Fonts, it’s now even easier to browse a collection of open source designer fonts and learn more about the people who make them. Specimen pages, featured collections, and analytics also help you navigate and easily discover great typography.

Read more about the Google Fonts redesign

Visit Google Fonts: fonts.google.com

Type lovers! Don’t miss Rob Giampietro talking typography at Typographics

Sign up to join Kai Haley of Google's Design Relations team to learn about Google Design Sprint Methodology.

The second edition of our Google Design Newsletter ships today. Inside we cover #io16, women emoji in the press, Goals for Google Calendar, and the recent rebrand of GV. We also roundup what’s new with #materialdesign, and bring you the second installment of “5 Things to Love."

Subscribe to the Google Design Newsletter

Whether you’re attending live or livestreaming, we've compiled a go-to guide for design programming at #io16. You’ll find our hand-picked event highlights, office hours for in-person design reviews, and updates to our material design guidelines. We’ll also be expanding the post with links and videos as they become available — stay tuned and check back often.

Follow our #io16 design coverage on Medium

Material design lives in a world that’s a lot like ours—one that’s responsive, natural, aware, and intentional. The newly expanded #materialdesign motion guidelines can help you produce motion that feels natural, while delivering a clear and cohesive experience for your users. Check out the expanded motion guidance and get to know how things move.

Our latest release also includes new sections on growth and communications (so users can quickly understand what they can do with your app), and expansion panels.

Trying to master a new set? Or want to work out more? Google Calendar’s new Goals feature uses delightful illustrations to help you schedule time for what matters in your life, working around unexpected changes in plans, and even learning from your routine and preferences. Find out how the Calendar team designed a unique experience, using illustration as a tool to guide users, and as an integral component that brings a vast range of activities to life.

Learn more about Goals on Medium / Download Google Calendar

Our March 2016 release includes new sections and updates:

A product is accessible when all people—regardless of ability—can use it. We’ve recently expanded #materialdesign guidelines to serve as a primer and comprehensive resource for accessibility considerations. If you’re responsible for determining accessibility standards for your team, or just interested in improving the accessibility of your product for all users—and who isn't?—this is the place to start.

There’s also a new section on bottom navigation—making it easy to explore and switch between top-level views in a single tap.

See what’s new

An easy way to stay up-to-date with our latest and greatest #googledesign news, get updates on features and releases, tips from our team of designers, and much, much more. Check out our first installment and learn all about Resizer, a handy new tool for testing out your responsive UI.

Subscribe to our Newsletter / Read more about Resizer

Conversations on conditional design, privacy, VR, and emerging design tools with Luna Maurer, Justin McGuirk, Jessica Brillhart, and many more. Digital making workshop by Technology Will Save Us.

For the new Google identity, we created a system flexible enough to work across all our marketing materials and products on any platform. The result: three elemental states that make up a single logo.

Go inside the creation of our new brand system.

Matias Duarte answers readers' questions in real time on Designer News.

Conversations on visual storytelling, design education, design tooling, and startups with Matias Duarte, Michael Rock, Jenny Arden, and more. Workshops on science fiction, futurecraft, and the design of wearables.