Preview the Google+ Inspired Gmail Redesign Now

On the same day that Google+ launched, the company also revealed plans for a massive redesign of all of its properties. The homepage was already in testing and many users are seeing the experimental version now.

Google Maps also got an update. Now, Google is unveiling a brand new Gmail to bring it in line with the new Google design mantra.

"Over the years, adding countless features to Gmail has made it an increasingly powerful communication hub, but along the way the interface has also become more cluttered and complex," Jason Cornwell, a User Experience Designer at Google, wrote.

"That’s one of the reasons we’re embarking on a series of interface updates to help strip out unnecessary clutter and make Gmail as beautiful as it is powerful," he said.

"This is part of a Google-wide effort to bring you an experience that’s more focused, elastic, and effortless across all of our products. The changes are not going to happen all at once," he explained.

Google wants to roll out a unified design across all of its properties. It's the most ambitious effort to date, if only because Google has never done a company-wide update like this.

However, implementing the new look and feel is easier for some of its products than for others. Revamping Google Help was relatively trivial, but Gmail is another issue.

This is why Google is taking its time and will probably not roll out the new design to users for several months to come and only after extensive testing.

That said, there is a way of checking out what Google has in mind for the new Gmail, live, by choosing one of the two new Gmail themes dubbed "Preview".

Just go to the gear icon on the top right, select Mail Settings and then the Themes tab. You'll see a very different Gmail if you install any of them and you'll be able to check out for yourself what works and what doesn't.

The new themes follow the new Google color scheme, gray and red for the internal links and light gray pretty much replacing the blue everywhere. The new layout does feel a bit too spaced out, casual users may find the regular "Preview" theme comforting, but those who live inside Gmail will definitely want to use the "Dense" version.