Jul 8, 2011 08:41 GMT  ·  By

Google wasn't kidding when it said that all of its sites are getting a major redesign. Now, one of its biggest and most recognizable, YouTube, is joining in with the Cosmic Panda project.

Cosmic Panda is the codename of the brand new YouTube design which is still in testing. When it does go live, it will be the biggest change YouTube has gotten since launch.

"Today, we’d like to invite you to play along with us by participating in one of our latest TestTube experiments: Cosmic Panda. To take this experiment for a test drive go to www.youtube.com/cosmicpanda and click 'Try it out!'," YouTube announced.

"Once you're in the experiment, much of YouTube will look different, including videos, playlists and channels," it added.

"Look different" is somewhat of an understatement, while the new site is still recognizable as YouTube, the changes are everywhere. There are new colors, a new layout, all of the elements have been redesigned and look slicker.

The video player is new, the channel pages are different, the playlists look great, there's not one part of YouTube that hasn't been touched.

The most noticeable change is to the player area. There is now a dark strip around the video all the time, to make it easier to watch.

The player itself is dark and looks a lot more polished.

There are also fewer controls in the player itself, the play/pause button, the volume, the video quality and the full screen button.

Below the player, you'll be able to switch between different sizes for the video window, there are now more options to choose from. The playlists are now integrated into the viewing area, the clips in the playlist show up directly below the video.

There are plenty of changes, the best way to check them out is to see them for yourselves. The new design is still in the testing phase and YouTube wanted people to start using it before rolling it out.

If you don't like what you see, you can go back to the regular YouTube design from the TestTube page. But this won't be for long, YouTube will roll it out to everyone soon enough.

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The new YouTube design
The new YouTube channel design
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