Posted by Rich Fulcher, Material Design Team

When we first announced material design in June 2014, we shared an aspirational highlights reel that demonstrated key material principles for motion, interaction, and visual design across a range of hypothetical apps. “Hypothetical” being the key word here—back then, material design was just an idea. Sure, designers and engineers at Google were already working hard on applying material to Google’s Android, iOS, and web apps, but the notion of a single design system that can work across platforms and brands was just an idea.

Fast-forward to today, and thousands of Android apps are adopting material design using the Android 5.0 SDK and AppCompat, while designers and developers begin to experiment with material design on iOS and the web as well. These apps are starting to realize that aspirational vision we set out with that sizzle reel.

Today, we’re celebrating the amazing design work from Google Play developers and announcing the Material Design Showcase and Material Design Awards.

With the Material Design Showcase, we’re highlighting 18 great material design apps through a collection on Google Play, just like with the Beautiful Design collection in years past.

Of those 18 apps, we’re recognizing 6 with a special award, which we handed out during Google I/O today and announced at the Material Now session hosted by Matias Duarte.

These 6 winners of our first ever Material Design Awards represent best-in-class applications of specific aspects of material design:

B&H Photo Video Audio Pro for Immersive Imagery New York Times for Elegant Typography Pocket for Adaptive Layouts Pocket Casts for Seamless Browsing Tumblr for Delightful Animation Weather Timeline for Crafted Simplicity

So today, we have a new highlights reel, featuring these six wonderful and very real apps:

The individuals, teams, and companies behind these apps have made the promise of material design that much more of a reality.

What’s next

But remember, this is only the beginning. We’ll continue to recognize excellent material design in the future, evolving the awards as we evolve material design itself—together as a community.

If you’re a designer or developer just starting out with material design, make sure to check out these 18 apps in the Material Design Showcase. They’re a great source of inspiration, in addition to the awesome content on community sites like Dribbble. And if you’re wondering how to start implementing some of these ideas, get started today with the Creating Apps with Material Design training docs. When you publish your next great app with material design, be sure to let us know on Google+ and Twitter!