material-jekyll-theme

material-jekyll-theme is a Material Design–inspired Jekyll theme for building personal blogs and portfolio sites on GitHub Pages. It gives you a clean, card-based layout and a set of configurable options — five color themes and a fixed navigation toggle — all controlled through a single _config.yml file. The theme was created by Alex Carpenter and is available on GitHub.

What is material-jekyll-theme?

material-jekyll-theme is a Jekyll-based static site template that applies Google's Material Design visual language to a blog or personal website. It takes content written in Markdown (standard Jekyll posts and pages) and renders a HTML site with a responsive, colored top bar and fixed navigation option. The theme runs on Jekyll, the Ruby static site generator, so it can be hosted on GitHub Pages for free without a database or server.

Key Features

• Material Design styling — The theme's layout uses Material Design principles with a colorful header and card-based content presentation.
• Five color themes — Switch the primary color between Green, Blue, Orange, Purple, and Grey directly in _config.yml.
• Fixed navigation toggle — Set the fixed navigation option to true or false to control whether the menu stays pinned while scrolling.
• Single-file configuration — All theme options, site title, and social links are edited in one _config.yml file.
• GitHub Pages ready — Because it's a standard Jekyll theme, you can publish the generated site by pushing the repository to GitHub Pages.
• Demo available — A live demo is hosted at alexcarpenter.github.io/material-jekyll-theme so you can see the default layout and color schemes before cloning.

Who is material-jekyll-theme for?

• Jekyll developers — Users already comfortable with Jekyll's folder structure and Liquid templates can clone the repo and adapt it quickly.
• Bloggers — Writers who want a Material Design look without building a theme from scratch can use the provided layout and post templates.
• Portfolio owners — Designers and developers who need a simple, colorful personal site to showcase projects can customize the color and navigation options.

What can you do with material-jekyll-theme?

• Start a personal blog — Clone the repo, add your Markdown posts to the _posts folder, and serve the site locally with bundle exec jekyll serve.
• Build a portfolio page — Customize the theme color and use pages to present your work with a clean, Material Design header.
• Create a project landing page — Use it as a minimal documentation or project page hosted on GitHub Pages.

How does material-jekyll-theme work?

It works like any standard Jekyll theme: you clone the repository, edit _config.yml with your site details and chosen options, then run bundle install followed by bundle exec jekyll serve to preview locally. When satisfied, push the repository to a GitHub Pages–enabled branch to publish.