An interview with an Apple emoji designer

nnate 3 days ago 27 commentsRead Article on shadycharacters.co.uk

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Discussion (27 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

9dev•18 minutes ago

> We mapped almost 1:1 to SoftBank’s set, though Apple chose to omit a few of the more risqué ones.

Which are these risqué emojis mentioned here? I don't think I have ever seen any that are even slightly graphic, which is probably why all the emoji slang conventions have spread like fire (Aubergine, Peach, etc.)

stringfood•16 minutes ago

long eggplant and a smaller Pinching Hand emoji were probably the first to go

hbn•3 minutes ago

I don't know if you're joking but the pinching hand emoji was added to the unicode spec in 2019 and the iPhone got it shortly after in the same year

ollien•about 1 hour 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">

holistio•about 2 hours ago

There is still no walnut emoji. Blonde-haired, black-skinned pregnant man? Yes. Walnut? No.

wpm•about 2 hours ago

Be the petty, small change you wish to see in the world: https://joypixels.com/blog/how-to-submit-an-emoji-to-unicode

holistio•about 1 hour ago

I will be. Thanks.

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

I love walnuts.

Jtarii•about 1 hour ago

Gotta love websites that hijack basic browser functions, in this case forcing smooth scroll on.

embedding-shape•19 minutes ago

Seems to be some sort of design agency or similar, it's basically internet-law at this point that those always fuck with the scroll movements of your browser, for some reason.

j1000•about 2 hours ago

Also no thief emoji or pirate emoji. Can someone enlighten me why we don't have it?

dagmx•about 2 hours 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.

blanched•about 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/

wvbdmp•about 1 hour 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…

holistio•about 1 hour ago

Or you're texting with people whose native language uses a logographic system.

aforty•about 1 hour 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.

amelius•about 3 hours ago

In case anyone is actually interested in the emoji:

https://emojipedia.org/apple

Aissen•about 2 hours 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.

amelius•about 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.

reaperducer•about 1 hour ago

not much more original than GenAI.

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

throawayonthe•about 1 hour ago

is that not sorta the point? i don't get the genai reference

Tepix•about 2 hours ago

Are the emojis on Apple (macOS, iOS etc) vector graphics these days?

LoganDark•about 2 hours ago

They are not. They are perhaps higher resolution than they once were, but still raster:

https://logandark.net/files/328S6690-9Q368809-16843Q53-RR2SN...

NoSalt•about 2 hours ago

Why does that site feel like I am reading typed text on paper?

CharlesW•44 minutes ago

It's a combination of the layout, the typeface (https://monokrom.no/fonts/satyr), and the thoughtful typography.

reaperducer•about 1 hour ago

Did you print it out?

NoSalt•about 1 hour ago

LOL