# Material Theming with MDC: Shape

DevFeed: [Material Theming with MDC: Shape](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/material-theming-with-mdc-shape-25989.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://medium.com/androiddevelopers/material-theming-with-mdc-shape-126c4e5cd7b4?source=rss-37290b859aca------2>)

Author: Nick Rout

Published: 2020-08-25T16:03:04Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Stories by Nick Rout on Medium](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/stories-by-nick-rout-on-medium.md>)

Topics: [Material Design](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/material-design.md>), [material-components](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/material-components.md>), [User interface design](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ui-design.md>), [Library](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/library.md>)

Tags: [android](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/android.md>), [components](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/components.md>), [design](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/design.md>), [material-components](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/material-components.md>), [material-design](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/material-design.md>), [material-theming](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/material-theming.md>), [usability](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/usability.md>)

## AI overview

This tutorial explains shape theming for Material Components on Android. It describes how shape categories and attributes customize widget backgrounds and how shape can influence attention, interaction cues, and visual distinction.

## Source excerpt

Shape theming on Android using the MDC library This article is also posted on the Material Design blog. Material Theming is a way to customize Material Components to align with your brand. A Material theme includes color, typography and shape parameters which you can adjust to get near-infinite variations of the components -- all while maintaining their core anatomy and usability. On Android, Material Theming can be implemented using the Material Components (MDC) library, from version 1.1.0 onwards. If you're looking to migrate from the Design Support Library or MDC 1.0.0, take a look at our migration guide. Migrating to Material Components for Android This article will be focusing on shape theming. Most widgets have a background shape, but have you ever thought about the ways that shape influences user behavior? Just like color and typography, shape can guide a user's attention, suggest interaction, and visually distinguish elements in your UI. Material's shape theming gives you the ability to define global shape values that change the style of components across your app -- for example, giving all your cards, dialogs, and menus really friendly rounded corners. Shape attributes Material Design provides 3 shape "categories" that are applied to the shapeable widgets of your app. Each of these have a design term (eg. "Small components") along with a corresponding shape attribute that can be overridden in your app theme (eg. shapeAppearanceSmallComponent). There are default "baseline" values (corner size, corner family, etc.) for each category. MDC shape attributes with baseline values Material Components use these shape attributes to style backgrounds of the widgets. Shape attributes used by a button They are applied with eg. app:shapeAppearance="?attr/shapeAppearanceSmallComponent" in layouts and widget styles. In the MDC themes these attributes map to styles, eg. <style name="Theme.MaterialComponents.*" parent="..."> ... <item name="shapeAppearanceMediumComponent"> @st