YouTube is getting a new logo and "vertical mode" as part of major redesign

By Christian de Looper Published December 21, 2019

YouTube is getting a refresh. The YouTube logo has become a famous part of the digital world, but it’s time for that logo to move on — to make room for a new, slightly more modern one.

The logo change is part of a massive, ongoing design overhaul that first began earlier this year — one that is delivering a much cleaner look and showing off a new “dark mode” that replaces light colors with dark ones. That design overhaul, however, was kept in beta — until today. Not only is it now out of beta, but some of its features are now rolling out to mobile users, and the new logo will be featured front and center.

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The logo is designed to be useful across platforms. Instead of the word “tube” being emphasized, you’ll find a small “play” icon before the word YouTube. That’s good for YouTube — it means that on mobile and in small spaces, instead of having the whole word “YouTube,” the basic play icon can be shown.

Of course, the logo is a small part of the slew of design changes coming to YouTube. The desktop interface has been upgraded to make use of Google’s “material design” language, which influences the use of the so-called “hamburger” menu, and, in general, makes things a lot cleaner and easier to view. The mobile app is also getting some of the redesign. Now, the header is white and navigation buttons can be found on the bottom of the app. You’ll also get some more playback controls in the form of gestures — including the ability to swipe left or right to advance to the next or previous video.

Another cool feature is the ability for the video to change its shape depending on the video format. So, if a video is filmed vertically, it can play back on the entire screen of a smartphone rather than playing with black bars on either side. The feature isn’t unexpected — Google teased it earlier in the year.

While these major changes to YouTube are rolling out August 29, YouTube has said that the rollout may not be complete for at least a full day — so if you don’t yet see the new YouTube, you should soon.

Christian de Looper

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…

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