What Would Google Look Like with a Material Design Makeover?

Google’s gorgeous new Material Design has received a warm reception. The design language marks a new direction for the search giant’s products, giving the new Android 5.0 Lollipop OS in particular a more intuitive and beautiful interface.Material Design is largely composed of flat shapes and colors, but utilizes layers and animations that lend depth. According to Google’s design team, Material is “grounded in tactile reality, inspired by the study of paper and ink.” By basing it on the physical world, surfaces appear to be more tactile. User interface elements offer the illusion of height and dimensionality. For now, Material Design has been reserved for Android and Google’s own mobile apps. But Google is also encouraging app developers to embrace Material Design for their own creations. The initiative not only resulted in the most visually appealing version of Android to date, but it has also provided a more cohesive look to Google’s mobile apps. Already, we’ve seen Material Design adopted by a wide range of Google’s core apps, including Gmail, Maps, Calendar, and YouTube, to name a few.However, Material Design has yet to take over all Google properties, namely desktop properties like Google’s core end-user product, the search engine at Google.com. It’s this glaring absence that led graphic designer Aurélien Salomon to ponder what the Google search engine would look like if it too received the Material Design makeover, and his vision is stunningly beautiful. Utilizing the Material Design principles outlined by Google and its designers, Salomon created a conceptual version of the popular search portal that includes bright colors and subtle shadows for a more simplified, albeit more modern look.Similar to Google’s latest batch of apps and mobile products, there’s less negative space. Gone is the cold sparseness we’ve come to expect when performing a search. In its place are bright, inviting colors, subtle animations, and the same amount of links and results on each page. In light of Material Design rolling out to Android Lollipop, Android Wear, Google Glass, and a host of apps, Google’s search engine is unquestionably beginning to look dated. If Google.com underwent a Material Design redesign like the one Salomon envisioned, it would undoubtedly change the way we see Google.In addition to making the popular portal more modern and visually interesting, a Material Design update would finally provide a common design language. It would unify Google products and standardize its design in a way that hasn’t been achieved to this point. But with millions replying on the search engine daily, it’s understandable that any updates to its core product will be gradual and carefully executed. Nevertheless, we hope that Google is taking note of Salomon’s creation because it certainly would make for a more compelling experience.