Star Trek: 10 Secrets About The USS Discovery-A You Need To Know
4. There is A Light That Never Goes Out
The original formation of the Discovery featured the easily recognisable Aztec paint patterning that offers different textures and depths to the surface of Star Trek's ships, most prominently those of Starfleet.
When it came to rebooting the Discovery into the Discovery-A there was a clean slate to provide a sleeker finish as this was one of the directions provided by executive producer Alex Kurtzman. What actually happened was that the surface lost the angular design pattern and gained a far more intricate and "rotary" style marking.
Dening also managed to tweak the parts of the ship that he felt didn't work such as the raised spine section running from the back of the saucer down to the top of the shuttle bay. Cutouts were added into the pylon sections of the secondary hull. The underside's blocky and angular secondary hull was smoothed out and almost flattened. The deflector dish was further replaced with a reset, blue-hued device similar to that of the refit Constitution Class from The Motion Picture.
Also take a good look at how the windows on Discovery have now all been recessed into the hull rather than flat against the surface. This can be best seen on the inner donut ring of the primary hull.