This paper makes a contribution to the current conceptualisation of service as a design material from three different perspectives. We use definitions of the term material, the connection with service logic and the techniques that service designers use to discuss ways to understand service from a design perspective. Service designers have tools for working with components, things, locations, actions, procedures, interactions and experiences at their disposal. Service designers work with a meta-material for the most part, which is a material representation of the services they are (re-)designing. Unlike fields where the material is worked into a finished form, the material of service design traverses between the concrete and the abstract throughout the design process.