I use Material design in my Angular app. Some elements like the mat-select have a very high density - these elements are anything but compact. The common way to render the layouts more compact in Material design is the density-property of the theme. I tried different ways to the the density - and it applies fine for buttons and other elements. But the mat-select stays big as always. Using of mat-select: <mat-form-field appearance="fill"> <mat-label>Granularität</mat-label> <mat-select [(value)]="this.settings.granularity"> <mat-option value="day">täglich</mat-option> <mat-option value="week">wöchentlich</mat-option> </mat-select> </mat-form-field> Try 1 (no effect): @include mat.select-density(-3); Try 2 (density for complete theme, no change for mat-select): $my-app-theme: mat.define-light-theme(( color: (primary: $my-app-primary, accent: $my-app-accent, warn: $my-app-warn), typography: mat.define-typography-config(), density: -3, )); mat-select unchanged big: Continue reading...