Stay in touch with Google Design—sign up for our newsletter

I/O 2016 Edition

There’s always a lot to catch up on after Google I/O, but this year we’ve got you covered. Head over to our #io16 guide to relive all the great design programming from the annual developer conference, including further insight into our new material design motion guidelines, a primer for “Learning to Speak Designer,” and a profile on Google Play’s Best Use of Material Design Award-winner, Robinhood.

Making Unicode Emoji Less Basic with 13 True-To-Life Representations of Women

Google recently urged Unicode to add 13 new emoji to better reflect women’s professional roles in society. As the team explained in their widely shared proposal:

“No matter where you look, women are gaining visibility and recognition as never before. Isn’t it time that emoji also reflect the reality that women play a key role in every walk of life and in every profession?”

We couldn’t agree more 👊 💪 🙌

Scroll to the bottom for select emoji press coverage.

Google Calendar Uses Illustration to Help You Reach Your Goals

Trying to master a new set? Or want to work out more? Download the latest version of the Google Calendar app then head over to Medium and learn how the team behind Goals designed a unique motivational experience, using illustration to guide users and bring a vast range of activities to life.

Inside GV’s New Rebrand

Designer Braden Kowitz walks us through GV’s recent rebrand and explains how hard it can be to take one’s own advice. To celebrate the launch, we gave away copies of Kowitz and Jake Knapp’s new book, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days.

What's New with Material

Motion

The newly expanded material design guidelines can help you produce motion that feels natural, while delivering a clear and cohesive experience for your users. Check out the material motion guidance and get to know how things move.

Accessibility

A product is accessible when all people—regardless of ability—can use it. If you’re responsible for determining accessibility standards for your team, or just interested in improving the accessibility of your product for all users, learn more about material design’s accessibility considerations.

And more...

We’ve also added new sections on bottom navigation, expansion panels, as well as guidelines for growth and communications. As always, you can visit our what’s new section to see the very latest updates.

5 Things to Love Right Now

Selected by Dominic Espinosa, a New York-based Interaction Designer working on the Google Docs team.

Peel

Furniture designer Leah K.S. Amick creates delightful products that invite interaction beyond their (necessary) functional uses.

Custom Mirrors by Bower

Bower’s arch mirrors add a bit of depth and Romanesque illusion to the everyday room or hallway.

Table Tennis Trainer by Thomas Mayer

Mayer’s brilliant Table Tennis trainer transforms the surface of a ping pong table into an interactive training app.

Michael Brown’s Broken Mirrors

Intensely polished stainless steel sculptures intricately pieced together by Brown resemble broken mirrors.

Tim Hawkinson

Playful, satirical, and sometimes mechanized sculptures make use of common materials like plastic bottles, shopping bags, or even eggshells.

Image: © Tim Hawkinson, courtesy Pace Gallery

Check out our jobs page to learn more about working in design at Google.

Newsworthy

AMI, a long-term collaboration connecting Google’s machine intelligence research and technology with artists and thinkers from a variety of disciplines, hosted an auction at San Francisco’s Gray Area Foundation for the Arts. Read AMI on Medium to learn more about the program.

Google Design is sponsoring HYPERLINKED, a new AIGA/NY series that explores the unique ways in which practitioners in New York and San Francisco are shaping design and technology. We recently kicked off #hyperlinkedsfny with two events in New York: The Business of Design: The good, the bad, and the bottom-line and In The House with Tumblr & Pinterest.

On the Google Design speaking circuit: Jonathan Lee will be participating in the Van Alen Institute’s spring series, The Rupture (6/16); Rob Giampietro is slated to speak at Typographics (6/17); Amber Bravo and Rob will discuss content strategy at Pixel Talks (7/14); Matias Duarte will be presenting at Brand New (9/15).

Know someone who might enjoy this newsletter? Send them this link.

John Maeda’s Design in Tech Report is worth a long read, and not simply for the material and Google Design shoutouts.

AdWords goes material!

More emoji press coverage:

“I do hope the emoji world gets a few more women, because right now, it’s a bit of an eggplant fest.”
– Stephen Colbert

“As far as emoji proposals go, this one is high-profile, with backing from Google and Unicode’s president.”
– Buzzfeed

“The proposed emoji adds include a doctor, a software engineer, a chef, a teacher, and our personal favorite, a Ziggy Stardust-inspired rock star—well played, Google.”
– Vogue

“When it comes to emojis, women can be brides or princesses, paint their fingernails, get a haircut and go dancing in a red dress. . . . But it may be changing.”
– The New York Times