Emojis are smileys and graphic symbols that
represents ideas or concepts used in electronic messages and web pages. New emojis
are added to existing ones on every messaging app, social platform, and
operating system in the world every year which makes some people wonder how
they are made or who makes them.
Anyone can think up and submit an emoji. If
you’re willing to do the leg work, your own emoji could become a part of every
messaging app, social platform, and operating system in the world. Here’s how
to become part of internet history.
How
Did Emoji Start?
Most people believe that emoji (sometimes
pluralized as “emojis” instead) are a recent invention, but they go back quite
far. The idea of single characters that represented faces or objects dates back
to the late 90s to early 2000s in Japan, where mobile phones included smiley
faces and icons directly in the font. Before this, people used emoticons such
as “:-)” or “^_^” that use symbols to create faces.
However, emoji as an official and universal
method of communication started in 2010. This was when emoji were added to
Unicode, the global standard for encoding and text in computing systems. The
Unicode Consortium, the body responsible for maintaining Unicode, accepted a
proposal from a team of engineers from Google and Apple to standardize these
expressive characters.
Since then, emoji have become a pop culture
phenomenon and a universal way of communication. In 2015, Oxford Dictionary
declared the “face with tears of joy” emoji (😂) the word of the year.
How
Do I Make One?
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| Unicode Consortium Icon |
The Unicode Consortium has established a
rigorous process to add new emoji into Unicode. Every year, the Unicode
Consortium hears out proposals for new emoji. After a comprehensive screening,
the best proposals will then be accepted, turned into emoji, and released to
the public.
Since the submission process is public,
literally anyone in the world can make an emoji. In 2019, Jay Peters from TheVerge published a piece about his experiences proposing two emoji: the yawning
face and the waffle. Both have since been implemented in Unicode and are
standard in most messaging apps and operating systems.
Coming
Up With An Emoji Idea
Before you start brainstorming, you should
check if your idea has already been pitched. The Unicode Consortium keeps a
running list of all emoji requests. This sheet contains both successful
proposals and rejections, as well as the reasons they were rejected. While your
idea already having been submitted isn’t an automatic disqualifier, there’s a
chance your pitch was recently approved from someone else’s idea.
Figuring out a concept for your proposal
isn’t as simple as making an icon for something that hasn’t been turned into an
emoji yet. The Unicode Consortium has a set of selection factors that they use
to evaluate if a proposal is worth being turned into an actual emoji.
The consortium divides these into two:
factors for inclusion and factors for exclusion. Here are the considerations
for inclusion:
- Compatibility: Is the emoji already widely in use on other social platforms? If it is, its chances of being in Unicode increase.
- Expected Usage Level: How much will your proposed emoji actually be used? There are a few measures that can be used as evidence of the likely usage level. These include frequency of use, the potential for multiple usages, the ability to use it in a sequence with other emoji, and whether or not breaks new ground.
- Distinctiveness: The potential emoji should have a distinct visual that is recognizable in emoji format.
- Completeness: The emoji should fill in a gap present in the current emoji library.
On the other hand, some of the factors for
exclusion include the presence of repeated requests and petitions, being overly
specific or not specific enough, and the potential for it to be a short-lived
trend. All of these can make your proposal a weak candidate to become an emoji.
Submitting
the Proposal
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Fire emoji
Arizzona Design/Shutterstock.com
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Once you find a great idea that covers the
selection factors, it’s time to make a proposal. The Unicode Consortium has
specific guidelines on how to write your proposal. Yours should have the
following:
- Identification: The name of your emoji,
such as “Party Popper Emoji” 🎉 or
“Face With Rolling Eyes Emoji” 🙄.
- Images: Sample images of your emoji proposal in both color and black and white.
- Sort
Location: Which category your emoji would fall
under, such as “Smileys and People” or “Food and Drink.”
- Selection
Factors: A run-down of each of the selection
factors for inclusion and exclusion mentioned above.
For all of the selection factors, you
should be able to provide substantial evidence and ideas. This is particularly
true with frequency, where you’re required to submit screenshots of Google
Trends and Google Image Trends results.
If you need more help, all of the past
successful emoji proposals are stored on the Unicode website. You can look
through these for inspiration or ideas to improve your proposal.
After you finish making your document, you
need to submit it to the Unicode Consortium. They have instructions for where
and how to e-mail your proposal, as well as formatting and file type
requirements. Review these to avoid having your emoji rejected.
Approving
and Implementing Your Emoji
Depending on when you submit your emoji, it
can be a very long process. There are three steps in the approval process
before your emoji becomes standard in Unicode:
- Initial
Proposal: During this time, an Emoji Subcommittee
(ESC) within Unicode reviews all pitches, and sends them for endorsement to the
Unicode Technical Committee or UTC.
- UTC
Consideration: The entire committee then reviews
the filtered set of proposals from the ESC. Accepted proposals are turned into
“Provisional Candidates.” In the 2nd quarter of every year, some provisional
candidates are turned into “Draft Candidates.”
- Final
Approval: Once the Unicode finally decides to
implement the emoji, it becomes a “Final Candidate.” These are then sent to
tech companies so they can create designs. They later get published into
Unicode, and apps begin supporting it.
All in all, it can take well over a year
from your initial pitch before you can use your emoji in WhatsApp or iMessage.
However, it’s a short amount of time considering that you’ll be making a mark
on the entire world.
If your emoji is picked for inclusion,
it’ll end up on every modern device that supports emoji in the world: iPhones,
Android phones, Windows PCs, Macs, and even Linux PCs.
Are you willing to go through all these
processes to see your emoji on every messaging app, social platform, and
operating system in the world? Let us know in the comments section
Source: How To Geek
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