After years of the same, recognizable orange logo, Reddit has unveiled a new brand refresh, which gives its well-known “Snoo” character a more stylized look.

As you can see, Snoo now has more depth and a more three-dimensional look (including opposable thumbs), while the Reddit logo font has also been updated for the next generation of users.

As explained by Reddit:

“We’re introducing new bespoke typefaces, Reddit Display, and Reddit Sans. Reddit Display incorporates the theme of conversation directly, with counterforms designed in the shape of conversation bubbles. It’s the basis for our new wordmark and is perfect for bold, expressive headlines. Reddit Sans was built for the Internet, with clear, understandable letterforms that maintain the warmth and eclectic nature of online conversations. It’s designed to be incredibly versatile, with a large x-height for readability and disambiguated letterforms for rapid identification and a more accessible user experience.”

As shown in the video, Reddit’s also adding more stand-out color elements for chats, on contrast to its orange primary scheme.

“In addition to OrangeRed, Reddit colors now include GuavaPink, LimeGreen, BananaYellow, and JuniperBlue. Redditors are colorful, so adding more hues better expresses and conveys the uniqueness of Reddit communities, posts, and conversations.”

It’s a significant shift for the platform, which gives it a more modern, fresh feel, which Reddit will be hoping will attract more users to the app.

Indeed, the new brand refresh is the latest step in Reddit’s broader effort to enhance the appeal of its platform, which is primarily aimed at maximizing its business opportunities.

Over the past few years, Reddit has made significant advances on this front, which began, most notably, with the removal of its most controversial subreddits back in 2020.  Since then, Reddit has added a range of new ad targeting tools, while continuing its clean-up efforts, in order to distance itself from the platform’s past, and its reputation as a more lawless corner of the internet.

More recently, that push has also led to some less popular decisions, including an increase in the price of its API access and new rules that water down subreddit moderator controls.

But with Reddit still hoping to launch an IPO at some stage, it needed to implement a more structured, brand-safe approach, even if that has also had an impact on overall usage.

At one stage, back in 2019, Reddit had 430 million monthly actives, but Reddit now claims some 7o million daily actives instead.

Daily and monthly active user counts are not directly comparable, but based on the average variation between DAU and MAU across other apps, it’s highly unlikely that Reddit currently has anywhere near 430 million monthly users.

That, seemingly, is the price that Reddit has had to pay to realign its business strategy, with this latest brand re-fresh being the next step in its broader plan.

Will that work out as Reddit hopes? 2024 is shaping up as a pivotal year for the app in this respect.