ARTICLE: The Analog Origins of Google’s Material Design

To view this article and its examples in its entirety, please visit – http://gizmodo.com/

As part of I/O, Google is giving us a closer look at the fairly old-school tools and ideas behind Material Design—and for anyone with an appreciation for a good X-Acto knife, a color wheel, or a crisp fold of paper, this is going to be deeply satisfying.

Google also posted an update on Roboto, its system typeface, and how it’s evolved over the past year. “We also wanted to add the typographic niceties we’re used to seeing in print,” says Christian Robertson. That meant refining not only the characters, but providing more weights, widths, and newly refined italics—drawing from traditional typography to add depth to a digital typeface. It’s “a living typeface,” he says, “a step beyond what we see with a lot of linotype systems.”

VIDEO: Saul Bass Google Doodle

The Google homepage today features a cartoon homage to a range of famous films, including “Spartacus,” “West Side Story,” “Man With the Golden Arm,” and the immortal Hitchcock thriller “Vertigo.” What do all those movies have in common? They all feature the work of the pioneering designer and artist Saul Bass, who did for the opening credit montage what Rodin (another recent Google doodle honoree) did for sculpture.

For more information on Saul Bass check out
http://www.aiga.org/medalist-saulbass/