USA Today redesigns for tomorrow, will soon unleash a beautiful new look on digital and print

USA Today is gearing up to release a complete redesign on all fronts this Friday, reports Ad Age, featuring a bold new look for its print publication and website, as well as a new circular logo and logotype.

As you can see below, the print redesign is actually much riskier than the website redesign, and features strong, bright colors, and an even greater emphasis on imagery. As for the redesigned site, it looks sleeker and significantly app-like, with an emphasis on presenting data in interesting ways. There’s even a drawer-like sidebar, which nods to the growing use of drawer-based navigation in popular mobile apps.

Here’s the new USA Today logomark and logotype:

As you can see the company is ditching its original, globe design (shown below).

For some, the simplicity of the new design may be too much, as a blue dot doesn’t really evoke a globe at all. If USA Today’s goal was to create something much more minimalist than its original, busy logo, this was a successful redesign.

USA Today is keeping its distinct, color-themed sections on both its digital and print digital editions, but now they feel much less harsh. It’s clear that there was plenty of communication between the two firms in charge of the publication’s redesign, Wolff Olins on print / branding and Fantasy Interactive on digital, because both designs function well together.

Here’s the new Web design:

and print:

Check out the video below. It’s pitchy, but shows off the company’s messaging quite clearly:

Update: The video has been deleted from YouTube.

Overall, the redesign feels fresh, with a strong emphasis on digital — something that will only become increasingly important as time goes on. The push for a Web app-like experience is particularly interesting, and a push for unusual interactivity is shown in the video above. Here’s an example of upcoming interactive graphics:

Classic personality is definitely lost with the new blue dot logo, but our first impressions are very good, and the remaining bold sans-serif type captures the company’s original essence.

For more, you might want also to take a look at eBay’s new logo redesign on TNW’s Design & Dev channel.