Show HN: Material Kit – Free Bootstrap UI Kit Based on Material Design

[metalliqaz]

Honest question from a non-web dev. Are these things actually used for real working websites? Are there any examples other than landing pages and blog posts?

One of the things that keeps me from using a web platform on my projects is that I don't want to have to worry about aesthetics. With good ole Windows, I drop some controls and buttons into a designer and I know it is going to look pretty good and be obviously functional to all users. I don't have time to place individual lines and worry about the alignment of shading and curves. Projects like Bootstrap interest me because they offer a way for me to focus on function rather than looks, however I never seem them in action for something substantial. Say, a financial accounts manager.

Are there projects out there using these templates for such purposes?

[poof131]

These tools: bootstrap, material, etc. seem to be exactly what you need. They make sure your style is consistent and looks good without too much work. You can then configure the framework to make it look unique to your application. My impression is these frameworks are used all over the place in production, they are just customized so you might not recognize them. The last three companies I’ve worked at, one used angular material, one used bootstrap, and one had a custom css framework. The later had a tendency to build internal frameworks instead of new product and is suffering the consequences.

[rdoherty]

We're using Bootstrap for our site, Podium: https://podium.live. It was a great way to get started, we had a decent looking app for a while, then once we could hire a designer we were able to modify where needed. It really does make a difference.

[metalliqaz]

Quick side note. Does anyone else notice the startling lack of information density on these pages. Compare it to hacker news. You have to scroll the window to see the introductory text. That's insane.

[moflome]

I agree with you, @metalliqaz: I personally have a hard time seeing how these examples can map to more business focused projects with the examples being just landing pages and blog posts.

@axelut maybe you can shed some light on why the examples don't cover a layout you would expect for, say a CRM app? Here's what I'm missing in your examples:

- Lists or Tables which can be filtered / sorted - In-line editing of List (or Table) items - In-line / pop-up / card-based detail drill-down of List (or Table) items - CRUD methods

Thanks.

[GoToRO]

there is a market for "fast food like" websites. The client has little money, and he wants the site done by tomorrow. He also has no idea what he wants to put on his own website...

One tell-tale sign are the portfolio links from web agencies that link to dead sites. The client paid for the site, the theme, one year of hosting etc. After the year was up he saw no reason to continue.

[bdcravens]

Used Bootstrap on our customer-facing portal for years and in a recent rewrite. Additionally, many websites build atop of Bootstrap as the foundation. Almost all of the admin themes on ThemeForest, for example, are built using Bootstrap, and provide rich "app" functionality.

[jeffmould]

Here are some big sites that currently, or have previously, use Bootstrap:

walmart.com target.com nba.com spotify.com nasa.gov fifa.com & many more.

[dizzy3gg]

Using something like this can save hours and win a client over (shallow souls) on some basic web internal business app.

[radnam]

Are you referring to developing a windows standalone application in C#?

[shutton]

Looks good.

I've been very happy with http://materializecss.com/. Really simple to use with some very slick touches.

[LoSboccacc]

"Free?" what the heck is a Creative Tim license?

[axelut]

That is the license that we give to our users. As an overview, you can use this product for your personal projects, startups or for a client. What you cannot do is to get this product and resell it/post it anywhere as your own created product. This is what we want to protect. That's it. Please let me know if I can help with other information.

[pc86]

Is it possible to upgrade a personal license to developer? IE when bootstrapping a product, getting customer feedback, and then upgrading when you actually start charging people?

[axelut]

Yes, you can do that whenever you want

[ben_jones]

Personal preference but does anyone else not like material design concepts?

[stronglikedan]

As with anything, I think material design can be done right or wrong. I don't like completely flat designs, and I don't like actionable objects that aren't immediately apparent as actionable. I do, however, like the overall look, as long as the functionality is done right.

One of my peeves is that it's sometimes hard to create business dashboards with high information density, since a lot of the material frameworks love their padding out of the box.

[cscharenberg]

I dislike it a lot, and I'm otherwise mostly unopinionated about design. I think it has poor usability. It takes me a long time to process the odd placement of things like a "New/Create" button and the animations annoy me and feel distracting.

[pbreit]

I initially really liked material because it seemed nice and clean but the animations have gotten out of hand, IMO, particularly when used on desktop. Is there a non/less-animated version?

[izacus]

I'm sure somewhere in the wide world of 6+ billion people there are individuals who agree with you :)

[ungzd]

I think it's mostly ok on Android (except floating buttons), but bad on websites (even Google's own). And that mobile-like dumbification when websites look like my monitor is giant handset and most features and controls are removed as "unneeded for typical handset tapper" (most pages related to account management on Google, new Google photos with especially primitive controls).

I prefer previous design of Android (4.0-4.2) with slightly retrofuturistic aesthetics.

[gallonofmilk]

me. I think some of the animations are a gimmick and not a fan.

[rtcoms]

I would like to use it for one of the saas application. I am not sure by when it will start generating revenue.

Can I use personal licence till the the time my app is not earning any revenue ?

[laurencei]

Looks amazing - great work!

This might be something I can use for a new SaaS I'm doing. Is there a "dashboard" type page?

And something with Tables/graphs etc?

[axelut]

At this moment we are working on Material Dashboard. It will come in the next weeks and it will be for Free having all the basic elements that you need to create a Dashboard (tables, charts, maps, forms etc). Then there will also be a Premium version for that with more components and customization. But the Free version will be enough for most of the cases.

It will be something like another dashboard that we created: http://demos.creative-tim.com/light-bootstrap-dashboard

[pc86]

The pro site lists additional components, including tables.

[Madawar]

This is nice and your other products are really nice. Was thinking of doing semantic ui for my next project but this will do. Pre-sale question if I want to resell a final product on envato will the developer license do (that is if i dont attach the source materials for the themes).

Also what License is suitable for an open source project?

[ruler88]

Looks great! Someone should make these into react components :)

[axelut]

Hi guys,

If you want to give use feedback, want to contribute or have any issue, here is the Github Repo: https://github.com/timcreative/material-kit

[askvikasr]

Saw the live preview. Can people customize the color of entire UI kit before downloading?

[erlapso]

Why didn't you contribute to https://github.com/FezVrasta/bootstrap-material-design/ instead?

[56k]

To make money I'd assume.

[desireco42]

I just looked at it and looked at pro version. Very compelling in my view, congrats. I know people might have different uses and approaches, but I think if it can save me a lot of time, it is worth it.

[axelut]

@desireco42 we are glad that you like! It will definitely save you a lot o time :-)

[nik736]

Am I the only one who thinks material design looks really bad? :-/

[deliriousferret]

I'm thinking of using Material Design Lite for my next project https://github.com/google/material-design-lite

[magic_beans]

Hm, using Gigi Hadid as the profile pic is pretty lame. :/

[speps]

Change that woman's picture at the bottom, not classy in my opinion.

Also, in SeaMonkey, the part with the sliders is like the sluggiest I've ever seen a website...

[TheCoreh]

Why is it not classy? The picture looks like a fashion photo shoot, probably for the earrings

[axelut]

Thank you for the feedback! We will check SeaMonkey (actually it's the first time when I hear about it :D ) and see what we can do to improve the sliders.