YouTube unveils new Logo, look and features

The YouTube logo has got aesthetic makeover after 12 years. This time the YouTube logo has been a pair of anachronisms wrapped inside each other. “We have the word tube in a tube,” says Christopher Bettig, the head of YouTube’s art department.

“This is weird. No one know what this is.” Tube is slang for a television set, which used to be powered by vacuum tubes. But neither tubes nor TVs are central to the world’s biggest video service, which now reaches over 1.5 billion people each month, streaming to almost any screen with an internet connection.  

The service is also getting a new typeface, color scheme, and a bunch of major changes to the look, feel, and functionality of its desktop and mobile app.
Though today’s logo change is the most significant in YouTube’s history, it’s not a complete transformation, like the morphing of Uber’s silver U into a backwards C. “It’s an evolution, not a revolution,” says Bettig.

The new font, logo, and color are rolling out today on YouTube’s desktop and mobile app. The goal now is to work them into the entire family of services the video giant now offers.

“As we diverge from the main product, how do we grow but clearly communicate, even to casual users browsing the app store, hey, this is a Youtube product,” says Bettig.

“We know this is a lot of change,” writes Mohan, “but we want to make clear that there’s one thing that stays the same: YouTube’s mission.”