YouTube Desktop Refreshed With Material Design, New Logo Unveiled

Google's YouTube, the popular video platform, is finally getting a makeover on desktop. The platform is also getting a brand new logo and icon which is the first-ever change made to YouTube since its launch 12 years ago. The company had been testing material design-based changes for a long time and previewed the refreshed look back in May. Additionally, the company is also bringing some updates to the Android and iOS YouTube apps.

Starting off with the new logo, YouTube's Neal Mohan, Chief Product Officer, says that the new logo and icon have been designed for the multi-screen world and reflect a refreshed look. Users can see the brand new logo and icon rollout across devices starting Tuesday while other apps and services will show the new logo and icon soon.

"The updated Logo combines a cleaned up version of the YouTube wordmark and icon, creating a more flexible design that works better across a variety of devices, even on the tiniest screens. Why's it more flexible? When room is limited (say on a smartphone) you can use the brightened up icon as an abbreviated logo, which will be seen more easily and read more clearly," explained Mohan in a blog post. YouTube says the new look applies Material Design, apart from delivering a fresh, simple, and intuitive user experience. With the revamped look, users will also get the new desktop Dark Theme, which turns the background dark for a more cinematic look.

The YouTube mobile app is also getting a bunch of new features including a 'Clean' new design where the header is now white to focus on the content while the navigation tabs have been moved to the bottom of the app for easy access via thumbs. New Library and Account tabs have been also added for easy access.

YouTube's mobile apps will also receive more gesture based functionalities while you are watching a video. In the coming months, new gesture feature will let users jump between videos with a simple swipe of hand like swipe left to watch a previous video or swipe right to watch the next one. Earlier, users were able to double tap on the left or right side of a video to fast forward or rewind 10 seconds. The new feature will also let users decide speed of the video which is a feature that was available to the desktop. Another feature that will be rolling out to YouTube player will be to seamlessly change shape to match the video format such as vertical, square, or horizontal. The company says that users will no longer see black bars on the sides in mobile apps while watching a video in vertical mode. YouTube is also working on new way users can browse videos while watching a video.