What will Android L look like? Google's new Material Design video gives us an idea

If you are reader of this, or any other Android or Google related website, you know that the Google I/O conference kicked off with the 2+ hour keynote presentation that ended just an hour ago. As you might imagine, one of the key topics was Android.

Never mind the fact that they are clocking over 90 million selfies every day from over 1 billion active users, they showed us a bunch of new design principles that will slowly roll out to all Google services across multiple platforms.


We took a look at the Quantum Paper project a while back, which is easiest to describe by having you check out the Google+ app on your Android phone. That colorful top bar and the button layout, that was about the gist of it, until today.



I will absolutely oversimplify Google's changes and sum up in two words: animation and z-index. Now, if know HTML web programming at all, you should understand what z-index is, photoshop users may call it layering. Simply put, one element, such as an image, layers or stack on top of another element. Google is putting this to work through the use of layering and lots of drop shadows to really emphasize a specific element in your app design.

Animation is pretty self explanatory, with splash effects when you touch items, dynamically resizing elements and smooth transitions between elements or even between apps on your device.

There is more to come, stay tuned.