Drew Ink The year

Elevation

The stated height of a surface above the one behind it, from which its shadow is computed rather than chosen.

Elevation: an app screen at five stated heights. A status bar and a ground at 0, an app bar at 4 dp, six cards at 1 dp each carrying the same shadow as the others, a menu at 16 dp over a scrim with one item selected, and a round action at 6 dp. Each surface carries its height in small grey capitals, and the last row of cards is cut by the bottom of the screen. — Elevation, a screen at five heights, Drew Ink. Drawn 2026-09-12.

Near it

Material Design

Glassmorphism

What it is made of

what it is	Material: "Elevation is the distance between two surfaces on the z-axis", and it "is measured as the distance between components along the z-axis in density-independent pixels (dps)."	Google, Material Design 3, "Elevation". Read whole, 659 words, 2026-09-11. It is a DISTANCE, not an effect, which is the whole of the entry
expressed in	a shadow, or a tonal surface colour. Material: "Elevation can be shown as tonal surface colors or shadows"	Google, Material Design 3, "Elevation". Read whole, 659 words, 2026-09-11
and the shadow is NOT the elevation	Material: "Tokens have no shadows or color; each platform determines the specific shadows and values to use at each elevation level"	Google, Material Design 3, "Elevation". Read whole, 659 words, 2026-09-11. The token carries a dp and nothing else; a shadow is what one platform decided that dp looks like. Our own drawing is built the same way: the elevation scene computes every shadow from a dp value through one function and contains no shadow constant anywhere, so a level cannot be drawn without saying how high it is
AND M3 CHANGED THE RULE, which most writing about this style has not caught up with	Material: "Shadows: Instead of applying shadows by default to all levels, use shadows only when required to create additional protection against a background or to encourage interaction", and "Levels: Elevation is now described in terms of levels". Their own summary of the change is "M2: Shadows applied at all levels" against "M3: Using color instead of shadows to communicate elevation"	Google, Material Design 3, "Elevation". Read whole, 659 words, 2026-09-11. So the shadow-at-every-level look that the word still calls to mind is M2, and the current system uses colour first and a shadow only where it earns its place
why it matters	Material: "Stick to using a small amount of elevation levels" and "Avoid changing the default elevation of Material 3 components"	Google, Material Design 3, "Elevation". Read whole, 659 words, 2026-09-11. A system that lets every component pick its own height has a z-axis nobody can read

Sources

Material Design 3 — Elevation, GoogleTokens have no shadows or color; each platform determines the specific shadows and values to use at each elevation level