An interview with an Apple emoji designer

 (shadycharacters.co.uk)

50 points | by nate 2 days ago

6 comments

  • ollien 25 minutes ago
    If the author is reading this, the hyperlink to the book in the first paragraph is broken. Looks like it's attempting to direct you to an absolute url that was meant to be relative.

        <a href="https://books/face-with-tears-of-joy">
  • aforty 53 minutes ago
    So cool to get the background story on this. I remember adding the Japanese keyboard here in the US just so I could get access to emojis.
  • holistio 1 hour ago
    There is still no walnut emoji. Blonde-haired, black-skinned pregnant man? Yes. Walnut? No.
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    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 0 minutes ago
      Also no soldier emoji among the professions.
    • wpm 1 hour ago
      Be the petty, small change you wish to see in the world: https://joypixels.com/blog/how-to-submit-an-emoji-to-unicode
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      • Jtarii 34 minutes ago
        Gotta love websites that hijack basic browser functions, in this case forcing smooth scroll on.
      • holistio 30 minutes ago
        I will be. Thanks.

        By the way, Walnut Creek is less than 100 miles from Cupertino.

        I love walnuts.

    • j1000 1 hour ago
      Also no thief emoji or pirate emoji. Can someone enlighten me why we don't have it?
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      • dagmx 1 hour ago
        Simply because nobody has successfully pitched the Unicode group to add one.

        Anyone can pitch new emoji, they just have to go through the fairly easy but strict formal process.

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        • blanched 1 hour ago
          Alex Schmidt, a humor writer (formerly of Cracked and others) did this process for the bison emoji. I enjoyed his “miniseries” about it: https://www.bisonemojipodcast.com/
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          • basch 18 minutes ago
            does the reverse notebooklm exist yet that turns podcasts into longform journalism?
      • wvbdmp 44 minutes ago
        What’s next, a cowboy emoji? A ninja emoji? But seriously, as much as I like emojis, I kind of feel like they should stick to emotions. Maybe other intangible things. They’re hard to convey verbally (and succinctly), simple concrete nouns are good for a bit of fun and for UI icons, but really not very useful if we’re being honest. Unless you’re texting with a lizard, or my lazy elementary-school niece who shouldn’t really have a phone anyway…
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        • holistio 28 minutes ago
          Or you're texting with people whose native language uses a logographic system.
  • amelius 2 hours ago
    In case anyone is actually interested in the emoji:

    https://emojipedia.org/apple

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    • Aissen 1 hour ago
      More specifically, it was this set: https://emojipedia.org/apple/iphone-os-2.2

      Interesting tidbit:

      > Emoji support required iPhone OS 2.2 and a SoftBank SIM card.

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      • amelius 1 hour ago
        To be honest, the images look like things I've seen a hundred times over in comic books and not much more original than GenAI.
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        • reaperducer 49 minutes ago
          not much more original than GenAI.

          What exactly do you think the "GenAI" trained on?

        • throawayonthe 51 minutes ago
          is that not sorta the point? i don't get the genai reference
  • Tepix 1 hour ago
    Are the emojis on Apple (macOS, iOS etc) vector graphics these days?
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  • NoSalt 1 hour ago
    Why does that site feel like I am reading typed text on paper?
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