Google’s material design is an ambitious concept. It is based on principles of technology and design to push the envelope. Many say that material design is the evolution of the flat design trend that has been popular among designers and developers for the past few years.
In the WordPress world we have definitely seen the material design trend grow. Although the concept was developed by Google, designers are utilizing the elements of material design across many different platforms and devices. How can you use material design to your advantage?
The cool thing about material design is that you can use it as framework to build visually stunning displays that are interactive. This helps you create a refined visual display and a killer user experience. Mobile first guidelines are fundamental to material design, yet touch, speech, mouse and keyboard inputs are all consider. This post contains 9 material design themes for WordPress.
What is Material Design?
If you are confused about what material design is, this may help: it’s a concept that defines how apps on Android should look and how the user interface works. It defines rules for animation, style, layout, elements, patterns and user experience. Apps like Google Drive, Gmail and YouTube all adhere to these principles. According to Google, the objective of the project is to:
“create a visual language that synthesizes classic principles of good design with the innovation and possibility of technology and science.”
Material design delivers a consistent user experience. It accomplishes this easily because it is constructed on a firm set of rules and functionality models. One of the most interesting aspects of material design is that the rules for animation mimic the physical world. That’s probably why the codename for the project is “Quantum Paper.”
One thing you may notice is that the rules are fairly tight, making it harder to get a unique look for some designers. Don’t worry though, you can break some of the rules if it suits you. The material design police won’t come knocking at your door demanding that you take your website down just yet.
I’ve seen some very nice websites that take some of the concepts from material design but bend the rules a bit. Many find success by choosing one aspect and running with it. Consider the following examples.
The animation guidelines are quite nice. Try using those principles within your site for all the animation. As far as the rest of your website, design it however you like.
Some of the guidelines may work for you and some may not. For instance, if you like the design rules for icons, just use those. It’s a good way for anyone to learn how to create aesthetically pleasing grids.
Zephyr | Material Design Theme
This theme is nothing short of amazing. Zephyr is heavily rooted in material design. It even won Envato’s Material Design Contest for best theme.
Zephyr combines technology, crisp design and lots of features to give you an incredible set of tools. The authors really worked hard on every last detail and it shows. It’s flexible, filled with options and easy to use.
You can build many different types of WordPress websites with this theme. This includes blogs, business sites, photography, portfolios, WooCommerce shops and more. Zephyr is a designer’s best friend. It’s the poster child for material design and provides an easy solution. Use it to build stunning displays and provide users with a great experience. You can test drive Zephyr for free before you buy it, just click one of the buttons below to see for yourself.
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KLEO – Next level WordPress Theme
Kleo is another ultra-modern, clean theme for WordPress. One of the best things about Kleo is the usability features. It’s very easy to create stunning presentations that adhere to the latest design standards. It’s currently the number one BuddyPress theme for WordPress in 2016.
This flexible theme is suitable for a wide range of use cases. Build sites for online shops, blogs, portfolios, e-learning and more. Stay on top of trends by incorporating material design principles into your website.
There are lots of options for designers to play with. For example, Kleo comes with Google’s material design color presets to make things easy. There are tons of ways to use this theme to keep your design fresh and enhance user experience. Check out the demos to see the power of Kleo.
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Woffice – Intranet/Extranet WordPress Theme
Woffice is another multi-purpose WordPress theme with unlimited use cases. There are more than enough options to let your creativity run wild. This theme is a good choice for developers who want to quickly put up a high quality website.
With Woffice you can get a pixel perfect site up in no time. No coding is required. The design layouts are all inspired by material design principles. Everything is easy to change. The theme options make customizing simple.
This theme comes with lots of tools to extend functionality. This includes BuddyPress Network, tools for users, Wiki Chat, Directory Extension and more. Try out Woffice to create an intranet, business directory or build a community.
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Corsa – Retina Responsive Creative OnePage Theme
Build clean, powerful websites with Corsa. This trendy theme is definitely a keeper for forward thinking web designers, or anyone who wants to keep up with today’s trends. With Corsa it’s easy to create and manage fresh websites for business or creative use.
It’s appropriate for building WordPress websites for photography, portfolios, photography or any other site that needs to showcase high quality multi-media presentations. Corsa is a robust solution for building impressive websites. Check out the demos to see what this theme is capable of.
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Startit – A Fresh Startup Business Theme
Do you need to build a business website? StartIT is perfect for creating WordPress websites for startup businesses and other websites related to the tech industry. It’s fairly flexible and easy to use. This goes for all the themes on this list, but I’ll reiterate. You don’t need to do any coding to produce a top-quality website with StartIT.
The options panel is intuitive. Everything is laid out nice and easy for you to see. Where does material design fit in? With StartIT you can go beyond flat design trends and incorporate material design principles. You get a ton of tools and options to do things like add animated backgrounds, display crisp icons and improve usability.
Mix and match the best elements from flat and material design with StartIT to build your website. Try it for business, online stores, tech startups, app landing pages and more. This modern theme performs well and produces clean websites.
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Glory – Multipurpose WooCommerce WordPress Theme
It doesn’t matter whether you are looking to sell products, services or market. Glory is great for selling online. It is a very flexible WooCommerce theme. You can get many different results depending on your needs. This feature-rich WordPress theme is useful for those who want to put up professional, yet elegant websites. Try it for fashion, salons, beauty products, furniture stores and more.
The design and functionality of the demo sites are inspired by material design. They demonstrate just what you can do with this premium theme. Glory comes packed with custom designs for all sorts of online shops. A few of them are stores for shoes, interior design, men’s apparel, t-shirts, supermarkets, grocery stores etc.
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Appica 2 – WordPress App Showcase Theme
This theme is meant to help people build sites focused on mobile-first features. It’s 100% responsive and customizable. This means that any website you create will look and function great on desktops and mobile devices.
Appica 2 offers WordPress users great design quality. It’s also very easy to use. Sites build with Appica 2 are extremely clean and professional. Use it to craft landing pages to promote your web applications. This theme has got some great features and was even featured on the front page of Themeforest.
Building your website with Appica 2 can give help you leave a great impression on potential customers. The layout and functionality are based on material design principles, and are nothing short of impressive. This theme is designed for the Android and iOS. Check out the demos to see how clean and professional Appica 2 can be.
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Obsession – Material Design WordPress Theme
Obsession is a flexible WordPress theme. With it you can create one page or multi-paged websites. It features some gorgeous material design elements like morphing buttons, info overlays and minimal contact forms. There are four different ready-made layouts to choose from. Each one can be customized to give you a unique look.
As with most of the themes on this list, it comes with some freebies. Visual Composer, Revolution Slider and Essential Grid are all included free of charge. It’s fully responsive, translation ready and the documentation is very thorough. Checkout the demos and step-by-step tutorials to see if it’s right for your next project.
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Material Design WordPress Theme – Rare
Rare is a material design based theme you can use to build a professional blog, make an online portfolio or build news or magazine style sites. If you are planning on creating content to be viewed on mobile phones and tablets, this theme is great. This theme is clean and won’t overburden you with options. Get just what you need to showcase and share your content in style.
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Final Word
Adhering to material design is a full proof way to impress. This list has some great themes that cover most niches. Hopefully you can find a theme on this list that fits your next project. Don’t forget to share. We love to hear from our readers. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section or let us know about your favorite material design themes.