Google’s video platform is getting a revamp of its own. Not only is it getting a new logo, but several new features were added to make YouTube more dynamic to viewers, a far cry from how it was when it originally started 12 years beforehand. “It’s an evolution, not a revolution,” shares Christopher Bettig, the head of YouTube’s art department.
The updated logo still has the iconic play button as part of their design, however, instead of having the word “tube” on it, they shifted the word outside and had the wordmark colored black. The logo also features a new typeface and color scheme. “We wanted to keep the history, and the tension of a media typeface that was made in 1903 to be typeset manually with a digital platform that reaches farther than any newspaper of the time could ever conceive of.” For the play button’s updated color, the team tried to find good medium: “Looking at reds, we wanted to go for something that would tie to video,” Bettig explained to The Verge. The iconic red was changed to #FF0000, “a really pure red that goes to the RGB of video.”
“We have the word tube in a tube,” says Bettig “This is weird. No one knows what this is.” The play button is familiar to everyone, hence why they focused on it. According to YouTube, the new logo also works better across a variety of devices, no matter how tiny the screen. “We’ll bring a new level of functionality and a more consistent look across out desktop and mobile experiences,” said Neal Mohan, YouTube’s Chief Product Officer.
Your favorite video platform is no longer a singular video-supporting website, but a site with several apps that function differently for all kinds of people, whether it be music fans or video gamers.
Mobile users are treated to vertical videos, no longer do they have to turn their devices sideways or force themselves to watch with black bars on the side. YouTube has also added tabs to easy navigation and re-arranged it to make finding your favorite videos a lot easier. One ability that excites us the most: controlling the playback speed of the video is also coming to mobile, those who want to crunch a seven-hour video to 10 minutes in a blink of an eye.
For desktop users, there is now a new option to have the website set to a “Dark Theme” where one can turn off the lights on the website and the once white background will now envelop to a nice shade of grey. This feature is meant to create a more cinematic experience. No longer are we forced to burn our retinas to watch endless cat videos—now our eyes can rest easy.
