Have you ever wondered how emojis are born? An internal Apple document that we were able to consult tells us a little more about the process of creating these small icons. Contrary to what you might think when you see their simple and universal style, designing an emoji is far from an easy task. The designs can raise many questions and give Cupertino designers a hard time.
First of all, let’s remember that it’s not Apple that decides to add any emoji: the list is drawn up by the Unicode Consortium, which coordinates the development of a common standard. This one incorporates new emojis every yearand each publisher (Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Twitter, etc.) then uses them in its own way.
From the moment the list of new emojis is formalized, the Human Interface team at Apple begins to make sketches. These are annotated and compared to other emojis already in place. This helps guide potential future color and perspective. The goal is to create something that won’t stand out from the rest of the Apple emoji family. Emoticons indeed have a particular and recognizable style, so they must remain consistent with each other. A designer explains: