At their annual conference covering the intersection between design and technology, Google announced this year's winners of the Material Design Awards during SPAN Pittsburgh. This is the third year for the annual awards and Google decided to change things up a bit by opening nominations to the public. After receiving “hundreds of submissions” Google reviewed them and came up with four winners. The honorees are recognized for “best-in-class achievements in employing the Material Design system.”
The winners for 2017 include the following:
- Blinkist – for Brand Expressiveness
- Eventbrite Organizer – for Interactive Design
- NPR One – for Platform Adaptiveness
- momondo – for Innovation
For the Brand Expressiveness award, Blinkist was recognized for the use of iconography, motion and typography to establish “a reader-friendly presentation” that is “distinct and engaging.” Blinkist is a service that takes non-fiction books and distills them down into 15 minute long summaries that can be read or listened to. According to the description in the Play Store, Blinkist helps users sharpen professional skills and engage in self-improvement while staying on top of the latest issues in a professional field.
In the field of Interactive Design, the winner Eventbrite Organizer is a niche app designed for event organizers. Google notes that the app includes a large number of functions, yet the design is effective at keeping users from feeling overwhelmed and minimizes the number of touches required to achieve various tasks. Eventbrite Organizer is the mobile portion of the Eventbrite ecosystem, giving event organizers the ability to create and edit events, manage ticket sales, accept payments, and check people in.
The Android ecosystem covers a wide range of devices including tablets, smartphones, smartwatches and even automobile dashboards. The next award for Platform Adaptiveness recognizes apps that transition seamlessly between these different platforms making it easy for users to continue using them. This year's award went to NPR One which is the dedicated app for NPR that gives users access to stories, shows and podcasts from both NPR and their local public radio station.
Finally, in terms of Innovation, Google recognizes the momondo app for their “distinctive animations,” imagery and use of motion to help encourage users to continue their search efforts. momondo is a travel app that helps users search for hotels and flights and find the best deals for their next journey.
If you want to check out any of the award winners, use the links below:
Play Store Download: Blinkist
Play Store Download: Eventbrite Organizer
Play Store Download: NPR One
Play Store Download: momondo
source: Google
