Twitter gets a redesign including a new font, layout changes, and more

Twitter New Tweet Image (Image credit: Twitter)

What you need to know

Twitter has rolled out a change to the way it looks on mobile and desktop.
A new Chirp font is now being used, while more contrast has been added and color changes have been made across the board.

Twitter has announced changes to the way it looks, including a new font called Chirp. Improvements to contrast and usability all around mean that Twitter is now much more accessibility-friendly.

We worked with @grillitype in Switzerland to develop Chirp, our first-ever proprietary typeface. Chirp strikes the balance between messy and sharp to amplify the fun and irreverence of a Tweet, but can also carry the weight of seriousness when needed.To get there we blended American Gothic and European Grotesque styles, adding specific handmade quirks of early woodcut specimens. This gives us a versatile and contemporary family with international sensibilities. We're in the process of extending Chirp to languages beyond the Latin alphabet.

I want to give a bit more depth to Chirp, our new typeface.

Type, in 280 character doses, is the foundation of Twitter. In the history of the company we’ve either relied on someone else’s typeface, from SF Pro and Roboto, to Helvetica Neue in our brand. pic.twitter.com/OrvlYsxF9gI want to give a bit more depth to Chirp, our new typeface.

Type, in 280 character doses, is the foundation of Twitter. In the history of the company we’ve either relied on someone else’s typeface, from SF Pro and Roboto, to Helvetica Neue in our brand. pic.twitter.com/OrvlYsxF9g— Derrit DeRouen (@DerritDeRouen) January 27, 2021 January 27, 2021

Other changes include the removal of "visual clutter" while users will notice fewer "gray backgrounds and unnecessary divider lines" as they use Twitter across iPhone, iPad, and the web. Twitter also now left-aligns western languages while others will remain unchanged.

While Twitter still might not be the best iPhone app for staying up to speed on what's going on in the world, changes like this are more than welcome — especially when those changes improve overall accessibility for an app that has generally been various shades of blue and gray for years. The improved contrast across the board is a big improvement for those who otherwise struggled to use the app.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.