Where Do Emojis Come From?

Since co-founding Emojination with Lu (who ultimately designed the dumpling emoji), Lee has helped to write countless emoji proposals. An emoji proposal details why a specific concept is important (based on historical and contemporary significance), shows why it would be a popular emoji, and presents a potential design. The Unicode Consortium then votes to approve the concept.

Of all the components to writing a proposal, gathering statistics to show desire for the proposed concept is the most challenging part. “We collect data from a lot of places,” Lee says. “We compare search terms on Google Trends. We look on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media—anywhere that shows that it would be a popular emoji.”

Another challenge is finding a universal, standardizable look. “Many people have proposed menstruation-related emojis, but those emojis keep getting rejected,” says Lee. “It’s hard to design a symbol for this. A pair of bloody underwear doesn’t really represent menstruation; it’s just a pair of bloody underwear.”

An emoji can promote cultural inclusion—or exclusion. Lee recalls a debate over a potential stethoscope emoji proposal. “There were already medical emojis, like a building and an ambulance,” says Lee. “But in many parts of the world, the hospital may look like a hut, or there might not be ambulances. We saw the stethoscope as a basic, universal symbol for medical care.”

Because an emoji looks like and works like a symbol, emoji design is akin to logo design.

Aphee Messer is Emojination’s top contributing emoji designer. She’s produced roughly 160 emoji designs, more than 70 of which have been approved so far. Her approach sounds strikingly similar to logo design.

“I start with a search engine and stock image search of the object, for photo references,” says Messer. “It’s useful to see other artists’ interpretations and to notice cultural variations. I’ll pick ones that I like, make a mood board of ideas, and start to put my own spin on them. Then I’ll share my drafts on Emojination’s Slack channel, take in feedback, edit, and hand off the final design to the person putting together the proposal.”

Messer draws most of her emojis as vector graphics in Adobe Illustrator CC. For more complex emojis, she adds textures and shading in Adobe Photoshop CC. “It’s really important that the proposed emoji looks as polished as possible,” she says. “When I started, I didn’t always pay as close attention to certain details. But I’ve learned that these details matter. It makes the emoji stand out more in the proposal, and it can help it to pick up traction in the press.”

And beyond making a strong first impression, emoji designers must also adhere to certain standards; for instance, animals typically face to the left. Anything white should have light gray, diffuse shading around it. And, perhaps most important, all proposed emojis must fit within 18 by 18 pixels. Unicode provides design guidelines on its website to improve interoperability across platforms.

Following design standards may increase an emoji’s likelihood of receiving approval. Full-body animal emojis usually are left-oriented, and white objects should have gray shading. Hippo, kangaroo, sloth, llama, lobster, swan, teddy bear, and flamingo designed by Aphee Messer for Emojination.

Illustrating objects with this constraint of size and proportion takes some mental gymnastics. “I try to simplify things while keeping them recognizable,” says Messer. “I also try playing with the angles and proportions of things. A guitar is pretty long, but if you skew the proportions and rotate it, it will fit.”

According to Messer, the hardest part of designing a great emoji isn’t about getting the shading or proportions right. It’s about capturing cultural nuances.

“When I was working on the tamales emoji,” says Messer, “someone pointed out that no one eats one tamal by itself; you always eat multiple tamales at a time!” She also learned that wrapping materials vary with region. With this feedback, Messer modified the design to include multiple tamales and proposed two colors of wrappers.

Some items look different across and within cultures, presenting another design challenge. Messer wrestled with this while designing an emoji of fufu, a staple food in many African cultures. Since fufu is typically eaten with a variety of other items, Messer decided to depict it with a stew-like side dish. “My latest round of feedback was to make the emoji look meatier,” she says.

Cultural insights are key to Messer’s designs. “I have lots of friends from different cultures, so I’m able to get their perspectives on my drafts. And often, the person submitting an idea through Emojination has cultural ties to the emoji idea, so their feedback matters a lot to me, too.”

If Unicode approves a concept, the proposed emoji design associated with the concept may guide how different platforms design their versions of the emoji. One example is the cupcake emoji, which Messer proposed as a chocolate cake in a teal wrapper with pink frosting. Google kept the cake chocolate and frosting pink but used a bright blue wrapper. Meanwhile, Apple chose a clear wrapper and white frosting on yellow cake. Both Google and Apple added sprinkles, which Messer calls “a superb touch.”