The Unicode Consortium has today announced the emoji candidates for inclusion in Unicode 8.0, due in mid-2015.

Popularly requested emoji accepted as candidates include the Hot Dog Emoji, Cheese and Taco.

via the Hot Dog Emoji Coalition Facebook Group

Sports symbols for Volleyball, Field Hockey, Ice Hockey, Cricket, Table Tennis, and Badminton are also on the list.

Factors taken into account by the Unicode Consortium when deciding which new emoji to accept as candidates include:

• Proven past use of a symbol in prior text or communications
• Popularity / likelihood an emoji will be frequently used, if introduced
• Gaps in groups of emoji, such as sports
• Compatibility with emoticons and pictographs used in other instant messaging or email platforms.

Also included in the candidates for Unicode 8.0 is an eye-roll face, religious symbols, a lion, and a crab.

2014 has been a big year for emoji, with a wide range of new emoji introduced in Unicode 7.0 (unfortunately with no implementation from the major platforms yet), support for nearly all country flags in Android 5.0, as well as the proposal for racially diverse emoji.

Unicode 8.0 is scheduled for release in mid-2015.

Google's emoji artwork has come a long way. Just one year ago, this is how Android displayed emoji:

Having black and white alien faces portraying a range of emotions such as happiness, sadness or love was challenging to say the least.

Color emoji was introduced to Android in version 4.4 KitKat, which also toned down the alien into a more human-like blob character.

Now Android 5.0 Lollipop has been released with improvements and modifications to a range of emoji characters. This post outlines all major changes.

The Hairy Heart Is Dead

The most publicized oddity of the Android 4.4 emoji images was the hairy heart. This is how the 💛 Yellow Heart emoji looks¹ on Android 4.4:

This is now a standard yellow heart in Android 5, along with the other colors.

Top: Android 4.4, Bottom: Android 5. Yellow Heart, Blue Heart, Purple Heart, Green Heart, Solid Black Heart.

People

😃 Smiling Face With Open Mouth now has an open smiling mouth instead of a closed smiling mouth.

😰 Face With Open Mouth And Cold Sweat now has a blue forehead, more closely matching the iOS version of this character.

😱 Face Screaming In Fear has also been updated to have a blue forehead, and wider eyes.

😵 Dizzy Face now has spirals as eyes instead of a large X. This is a clearer representation of dizzy, and joins Microsoft in using the spirals as eyes. Apple's artwork for this emoji looks very similar to the Astonished Face.

😈 Smiling Face With Horns has been corrected to be smiling, instead of frowning. More red.

And It Was All Yellow

Unicode recommends that emoji faces be displayed in a yellow, orange or other "nonhuman" shade.

Most white emoji characters have been changed to an emoji-yellow tone in Android 5, instead of their previous white tone.

Note: these changes are not part of the skin tone modifiers planned for Unicode 8, it is simply a change to the default artwork. This does, however, pave the way for skin tone modifiers to be implemented on Android in future versions.

Top: Android 4.4, Bottom: Android 5. Man With Gua Pi Mao, Man With Turban, Police Officer, Construction Worker.

Top: Android 4.4, Bottom: Android 5. Baby, Girl, [Boy] (http://emojipedia.org/boy/), Older Woman

These emoji also received yellow-skin updates:

• 👨 Man
• 👩 Woman
• 👴 Older Man
• 👱 Person With Blond Hair
• 👼 Baby Angel
• 👸 Princess
• 💆 Face Massage
• 💇 Haircut
• 💏 Kiss
• 💑 Couple
• 👰 Bride With Veil
• 💁 Information Desk Person

The 💂 Guardsman emoji remains white.

Yellow Faces; Pink Features

Facial features and body parts have been updated to show in pink. Some gestures were already pink in Android 4.4, such as the 👍 Thumbs Up Sign, 👌 OK Hand Sign or 👏 Clapping Hands Sign.

Newly pinkified facial features include:

Top: Android 4.4, Bottom: Android 5. Ear, Eyes (now correctly showing two eyes instead of one), Nose, Tongue, Mouth, and Flexed Biceps.

What Else?

Disco 💃 Dancer has retired, and is now a blobby casanova with a red rose.

💅 Nail Polish now a bottle of nail polish, not the act of polishing nails.

👒 Woman's Hat has gained a pink ribbon. (Was the previous one was not feminine enough?)

The 🐦 Bird is now blue instead of yellow.

🎅 Father Christmas now has a smile, and a slightly redder hat.

A different type of gun is shown for the 🔫 Pistol emoji.

⛳️ Flag In Hole now correctly shows a flag in the hole of a golf course, instead of appearing as a golf club and ball.

🍗 Poultry Leg no longer shows a whole roast.

🍖Meat On Bone is more true to the origin of this emoji, with a manga / anime style of meat shown.

💠 Diamond Shape With A Dot Inside is now a diamond shape.

It is promising seeing Google's attention to detail here. Apple has not released any new emoji (or changes to existing emoji artwork) since iOS 6 in 2012. It will be interesting to see what 2015 brings.

Related

• 2015: The Year of Emoji Diversity
• Android Adds 209 New Emoji Flags

Update April 2015: iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3 have been released, and some of the emoji details have changed.

The pre-release versions of OS X 10.10.3 and iOS 8.3, released to developers today, feature a range of emoji updates by Apple. Changes include new emoji categorization, new country flags, updates to old artwork for a few select emojis, and support for racially diverse emojis.

Above: A sample of these emoji updates: new watch image, variety of skin tones, variable family units, and new country flags

Racial Diversity and Skin Tone Modifiers

Apple is taking advantage of the new emoji skin tone modifiers, recommended by the Unicode Consortium in November 2014.

A small arrow appears next to the characters that allow skin tone modification.

Clicking the arrow offers a choice of five different skin tones, in addition to the default (yellow) skin tone. Choices for skin tones include pale, cream white, moderate brown, dark brown, and black.

The skin tone chosen can affect other features, such as the hair color. For example, the lightest skin tone tends to display brown hair, while the second-lightest skin tone has blond hair.

Above: Boy, Girl, Man and Woman with the five natural skin tone choices shown.

The following emoji characters are strongly recommended by Unicode to be included in any skin tone modifier update. They are available for skin tone modification in iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3:

• 👦 Boy
• 👧 Girl
• 👨 Man
• 👩 Woman
• 👴 Older Man
• 👵 Older Woman
• 👶 Baby
• 👱 Person With Blond Hair
• 👼 Baby Angel
• 👸 Princess
• 👲 Man With Gua Pi Mao
• 👳 Man With Turban
• 👮 Police Officer
• 👷 Construction Worker
• 💂 Guardsman
• 👯 Woman With Bunny Ears
• 🙆 Face With Ok Gesture
• 🙅 Face With No Good Gesture
• 💁 Information Desk Person
• 🙋 Happy Person Raising One Hand
• 💆 Face Massage
• 💇 Haircut
• 👰 Bride With Veil
• 🙎 Person With Pouting Face
• 🙍 Person Frowning
• 🙇 Person Bowing Deeply

Above: A sample of emojis using the dark brown (type 5) skin tone

As per the Unicode recommendations for these emojis, the default skin tone has changed from white, to a race-neutral yellow color. The white variations remain available through the skin tone picker.

Above: Default yellow skin used if no emoji modifier is applied

In addition to the above emojis, Apple is including a range of other characters (which are considered optional by Unicode) for skin tone modification.

These include hand gestures, and activities:

• 👍 Thumbs Up Sign
• 👎 Thumbs Down Sign
• 👌 Ok Hand Sign
• 👊 Fisted Hand Sign
• ✊ Raised Fist
• 👋 Waving Hand Sign
• ✋ Raised Hand
• 👐 Open Hands Sign
• 👆 White Up Pointing Backhand Index
• 👇 White Down Pointing Backhand Index
• 👉 White Right Pointing Backhand Index
• 👈 White Left Pointing Backhand Index
• 🙌 Person Raising Both Hands In Celebration
• 🙏 Person With Folded Hands
• 👏 Clapping Hands Sign
• 💪 Flexed Biceps
• 🚶 Pedestrian
• 🏃 Runner
• 💃 Dancer
• 🎅 Father Christmas
• 🏊 Swimmer
• 🏄 Surfer
• 🛀 Bath
• 🚵 Mountain Bicyclist
• 🚴 Bicyclist
• 🏇 Horse Racing

Family Choices

New to this update is a choice of family emojis.

Options for these family emojis include any variety of two adults (men, women, or mixed), with one, or two children (boys, girls, or mixed). This is an increase to the options available, as the previous family emoji displayed only two parents (male and female) and one (male) child.

New Flags

Japanese carriers originally included a somewhat arbitrary list of 10 country flags in their emoji selections. These have been the standard emoji flags available on most platforms until now.

This emoji update introduces 27 more country flags into its emoji picker.

• 🇦🇺 Australia
• 🇦🇹 Austria
• 🇧🇪 Belgium
• 🇧🇷 Brazil
• 🇨🇦 Canada
• 🇨🇱 Chile
• 🇨🇴 Colombia
• 🇩🇰 Denmark
• 🇫🇮 Finland
• 🇭🇰 Hong Kong
• 🇮🇳 India
• 🇮🇩 Indonesia
• 🇮🇪 Ireland
• 🇮🇱 Israel
• 🇲🇴 Macau
• 🇲🇾 Malaysia
• 🇲🇽 Mexico
• 🇳🇱 Netherlands
• 🇳🇿 New Zealand
• 🇳🇴 Norway
• 🇵🇭 Philippines
• 🇵🇱 Poland
• 🇵🇹 Portugal
• 🇵🇷 Puerto Rico
• 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia
• 🇸🇬 Singapore
• 🇿🇦 South Africa
• 🇸🇪 Sweden
• 🇨🇭 Switzerland
• 🇹🇷 Turkey
• 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
• 🇻🇳 Venezuela

Those boxes with two-letter codes above? These will appear as the correct country flag image on any platform that supports the new flags. This now includes Android 5.0, OS X 10.10.3 and iOS 8.3.

In addition to the flags shown in the emoji picker, Apple has implemented hundreds of new emoji flags, which can be found here to copy and paste, as they are not in the picker UI.

Above: all of the new emoji flags in Apple's latest update

Google released 209 new emoji flags in November 2014, which are available on Android 5.0 Lollipop. Microsoft has yet to make any country flag emojis available on Windows or Windows Phone.

Technology Images

To keep pace with new product releases, Apple has updated the watch, computer, and mobile phone emojis to represent the Apple Watch, iPhone 6, and current iMac.

Emoji Categories

Across various platforms, a range of groupings are used to categorize emoji characters. Most are similar, but none are the same.

Above: improved emoji selection palette in OS X 10.10.3

Apple uses five main categories in both iOS and OS X: People, Nature, Objects, Places, and Symbols. Emojipedia uses this same grouping for browsing.

Within these categories, there are some unusual choices, but most people have come to remember where their most used emojis are located.

Above: Emoji Categories in OS X 10.10.2

OS X 10.10.3 introduces three new categories: Food & Drinks, Celebration, and Activity. These mostly include characters previously in the People or Objects sections.

In addition to the new emoji categories, two existing ones are renamed and re-sorted: Travel & Places (mostly the same as the previous Places category), and Objects & Symbols (most existing symbols, plus objects that haven't been re-sorted into Food & Drink, or Celebration).

Above: New Emoji Categories in OS X 10.10.3

The sort-order for emojis within each section has also changed in a number of instances.

At this stage, there are no signs of the new Unicode 7.0 emojis being included in OS X 10.10.3, nor the Unicode 8.0 emoji candidates.

Related

• View the updated Apple Emoji List
• Original Unicode Racial Diversity Proposal
• Browse the Unicode 8.0 candidate emoji list

Google Chrome has been updated to version 41, which includes support for native emoji on the Mac for the first time.

Often considered a front-runner for new web standards and technologies, Chrome's lack of emoji support has long frustrated users by showing empty squares; unable to render the color emoji characters supported by other browsers.

Chrome 40 (left), Chrome 41 (right)

Apple added emoji support to OS X in 2010 with the release of OS X 10.7 Lion, which coincided with the introduction of Unicode 6.0. This was the first release of the Unicode Standard that included emoji, paving the way for cross platform emoji support now prevalent across iOS, Android, Windows and OS X.

October 2011 was when Chrome's inability to display emoji was first filed with the simple title; Emoji does not display in webpage contents on OS X Lion.

In January of 2012, a similar bug was reported for Firefox (Add color emoji support to Gecko) and resolved by the end of 2012.

Twitter created their own emoji implementation in April of 2014, which replaces native emoji characters with Twitter's custom-designed images. These are shown to all users of the Twitter website, as well as the Twitter-owned TweetDeck.

With the introduction of Chrome 41 for Mac, every major Mac browser now supports emoji: Safari, Firefox, and Chrome.

Chrome users can now view the list of emojis by category, without requiring the use of extensions, or switching to an alternative browser.

Browsers left-right: Chrome 41 for OS X, Safari 8 for OS X, Chrome 41 for Windows 8.1, Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 8.1

The Windows version of Chrome does not yet support color emoji, but is able to display emojis from the black and white Segoe UI Symbol font on Windows 7 and above.

Related

• Browse the Emoji List on Emojipedia
• Download Chrome for Mac

Apple has released its latest set of emoji characters to the public as part of iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3. There's a lot that is new.

Previously reported changes to Apple's emoji lineup have continued, with changes right up until the public release of the latest update for iPhone, iPad, and the Mac. Here's what you can expect.

We hope you like yellow

As recommended by Unicode in 2014, any emoji that displays with white skin in the previous Apple emoji artwork, has been changed to display with a "non human" skin tone. Namely a bright, Lego-like shade of yellow.

The result of this is a yellow baby, yellow boy, yellow girl, yellow surfer, yellow Santa...you get the idea. These Simpson-esque emojis might not be to everyone's liking, but they do strive to make it clear that the default characters do not have a particular race or skin tone implied.

Above: Your new, yellow, emoji family

Interestingly, Apple went one step further with these images shortly prior to the public release of iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3. The first developer beta versions used yellow-skin with dark hair for the defaults. All publicly-shipping default emoji people now have both yellow skin, and yellow hair.

Presumably this change was to make the defaults more distinct from the pale skin emojis which also feature dark hair, and light skin.

Above: Comparison of beta emoji artwork and final version

Google implemented a similar change to its characters with the release of Android 5.0 Lollipop in November 2014, which changed the skin tone of many white characters to yellow.

In fact, Google went one step further and made many of the emojis gender-neutral in Android 5.0. Unicode suggests that characters with no specific mention of gender or race should be gender-neutral where possible, however the result of this on Android is these 'blob' characters.

Above: Dancer and Information Desk Person are gender-neutral and race-neutral in Android 5.0

Change the tone

Every previously-white (human-looking) emoji now has a choice of five additional skin tones in the latest update from Apple. These are based on the Fitzpatrick Scale which is used to define various shades of skin tones.

The two whitest skin tones on the Fitzpatrick scale (type 1 and type 2) have been combined into a single pale skin tone known as Emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick Type-1-2. Presumably, these two tones were combined into a single modifier due to the similar of their shade being hard to distinguish at small sizes.

Above: The older man emoji shown with each available skin tone modifier

The skin tone modifiers available for selection are:

• 🏻 Emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick Type-1-2
• 🏼 Emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick Type-3
• 🏽 Emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick Type-4
• 🏾 Emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick Type-5
• 🏿 Emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick Type-6

With the yellow default tone included, each character now has a choice of six appearances.

While not specified by the Unicode Standard, Apple has chosen to give each skin-tone-modified emoji a different hair color. Unless the emoji name specifies hair-color (such as the person with blond hair), Apple displays each skin tone paired with this hair color:

• Type 1-2: Pale Skin — Black Hair
• Type 3: Cream-White Skin — Blonde Hair
• Type 4: Moderate Brown Skin — Medium-Brown Hair
• Type 5: Dark Brown Skin — Dark Brown Hair
• Type 6: Black Skin — Black Hair

Above: The boy emoji, showing each skin-hair combination

A notable exception here is the lack of redheaded hair on any emoji variation. Technically, the Unicode Standard only calls for different skin tones, and makes no mention of hair. Which leaves this sort of decision in the hands of those implementing each emoji image.

Above: Every skin tone shade available in iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3. Default yellow, pale, cream white, moderate brown, dark brown, and black

The following emojis now support skin tone modification on all current Apple devices:

• 👦 Boy
• 👧 Girl
• 👨 Man
• 👩 Woman
• 👴 Older Man
• 👵 Older Woman
• 👶 Baby
• 👱 Person With Blond Hair
• 👼 Baby Angel
• 👸 Princess
• 👲 Man With Gua Pi Mao
• 👳 Man With Turban
• 👮 Police Officer
• 👷 Construction Worker
• 💂 Guardsman
• 👯 Woman With Bunny Ears
• 🙆 Face With Ok Gesture
• 🙅 Face With No Good Gesture
• 💁 Information Desk Person
• 🙋 Happy Person Raising One Hand
• 💆 Face Massage
• 💇 Haircut
• 👰 Bride With Veil
• 🙎 Person With Pouting Face
• 🙍 Person Frowning
• 🙇 Person Bowing Deeply
• 👍 Thumbs Up Sign
• 👎 Thumbs Down Sign
• 👌 Ok Hand Sign
• 👊 Fisted Hand Sign
• ✊ Raised Fist
• 👋 Waving Hand Sign
• ✋ Raised Hand
• 👐 Open Hands Sign
• 👆 White Up Pointing Backhand Index
• 👇 White Down Pointing Backhand Index
• 👉 White Right Pointing Backhand Index
• 👈 White Left Pointing Backhand Index
• 🙌 Person Raising Both Hands In Celebration
• 🙏 Person With Folded Hands
• 👏 Clapping Hands Sign
• 💪 Flexed Biceps
• 🚶 Pedestrian
• 🏃 Runner
• 💃 Dancer
• 🎅 Father Christmas
• 🏊 Swimmer
• 🏄 Surfer
• 🛀 Bath
• 🚵 Mountain Bicyclist
• 🚴 Bicyclist
• 🏇 Horse Racing
• 🖖 Raised Hand With Part Between Middle And Ring Fingers

Skin tone choices are displayed in OS X by a click-and-hold in the emoji picker. The same choices are available in iOS with a tap-and-hold.

Above: the new emoji picker in iOS 8.3

After choosing a skin tone variation for a particular emoji, that preference becomes the default for next time. The next time that character is chosen with a regular tap (or click), the last-used variation will be inserted.

Family

14 new family combinations are now included in iOS and OS X, bringing the total emoji family choices up to 15.

Above: The variety of family emojis available

The combinations now allow for two male parents, two female parents, and one or two children. All of the new family emojis:

• 👨‍👩‍👦 Family (Man, Woman, Boy)
• 👨‍👩‍👧 Family (Man, Woman, Girl)
• 👪 Family (Man, Woman, Boy, Girl)
• 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Family (Man, Woman, Boy, Boy)
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧 Family (Man, Woman, Girl, Girl)
• 👩‍👩‍👦 Family (Woman, Woman, Boy)
• 👩‍👩‍👧 Family (Woman, Woman, Girl)
• 👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family (Woman, Woman, Girl, Boy)
• 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦 Family (Woman, Woman, Boy, Boy)
• 👩‍👩‍👧‍👧 Family (Woman, Woman, Girl, Girl)
• 👨‍👨‍👦 Family (Man, Man, Boy)
• 👨‍👨‍👧 Family (Man, Man, Girl)
• 👨‍👨‍👧‍👦 Family (Man, Man, Girl, Boy)
• 👨‍👨‍👦‍👦 Family (Man, Man, Boy, Boy)
• 👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 Family (Man, Man, Girl, Girl)

These family emojis do not currently support skin tone modifiers. When sending any of the family combinations, default-yellow is the only choice available.

No provision is included for single-parent families, or families with more than two children in this update.

Gay Couples

New emoji characters for couples were first introduced in iOS 6, which for the first time included a gay male couple, and a gay female couple.

Above: The new couples with two women, or two men

iOS 8.3 and OS X 10.10.3 add the following gay couple emojis to accompany the existing heterosexual versions:

• 👩‍❤️‍👩 Couple With Heart (Woman, Woman)
• 👨‍❤️‍👨 Couple With Heart (Man, Man)
• 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 Kiss (Woman, Woman)
• 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨 Kiss (Man, Man)

Live Long and Prosper

A late addition to Apple's 2015 Emoji Update was the inclusion of the Vulcan Salute just prior to the public release. This is not available on the emoji keyboard, so remains somewhat hidden.

Above: The Vulcan Salute is the only Unicode 7 emoji inclusion in this update

This character was approved in June 2014 as part of the Unicode 7 New Emoji List, but is the first from the list to be implemented by Apple. Which brings us to...

Missing!

While Unicode approved 250 new emoji characters last year, only one has dominated the top emoji list on Emojipedia since its arrival.

A search of Twitter shows people practically begging for the inclusion of what is officially known as Reversed Hand With Middle Finger Extended: aka the middle finger emoji. Is it included in Apple's 2015 update? Sadly not.

Above: This is what we could have had. Source

Emoji Categories

Prepare to re-learn the position of your favorite emojis, as they have all changed. New categories have been introduced, and emojis have been re-arranged within the existing categories as well.

The new categories are:

• 😃 People
• 🌸 Nature
• 🍔 Food & Drink
• 🎉 Celebration
• 🏃 Activity
• 🌇 Travel & Places
• 🔣 Objects & Symbols

Examples of these changes include:

• Hearts have moved from People, to Celebration
• Some views in Places have moved to Nature
• Any Objects that are not food, celebration or travel related, are now grouped with Symbols in Objects & Symbols
• The fire emoji is now in the Nature section, after years of baffling us grouped with People.

New Flags

A total of 198 emoji flags have been added to the existing 10 flags supported by the previous Apple Emoji font.

Above: All of the emoji flags from Apple

Only a subset of these flags display on the emoji keyboard, which may cause some confusion. Like the Vulcan Salute Emoji, this is a deviation from how Apple has previously addressed emoji. Prior to this update, the keyboard was a demonstration of every emoji supported. This is no longer the case.

The flags now supported on iOS and OS X are:

• 🇦🇫 Flag For Afghanistan
• 🇦🇱 Flag For Albania
• 🇩🇿 Flag For Algeria
• 🇦🇸 Flag For American Samoa
• 🇦🇩 Flag For Andorra
• 🇦🇴 Flag For Angola
• 🇦🇮 Flag For Anguilla
• 🇦🇬 Flag For Antigua and Barbuda
• 🇦🇷 Flag For Argentina
• 🇦🇲 Flag For Armenia
• 🇦🇼 Flag For Aruba
• 🇦🇺 Flag For Australia
• 🇦🇹 Flag For Austria
• 🇦🇿 Flag For Azerbaijan
• 🇧🇸 Flag For Bahamas
• 🇧🇭 Flag For Bahrain
• 🇧🇩 Flag For Bangladesh
• 🇧🇧 Flag For Barbados
• 🇧🇾 Flag For Belarus
• 🇧🇪 Flag For Belgium
• 🇧🇿 Flag For Belize
• 🇧🇯 Flag For Benin
• 🇧🇲 Flag For Bermuda
• 🇧🇹 Flag For Bhutan
• 🇧🇴 Flag For Bolivia
• 🇧🇦 Flag For Bosnia and Herzegovina
• 🇧🇼 Flag For Botswana
• 🇧🇷 Flag For Brazil
• 🇧🇳 Flag For Brunei Darussalam
• 🇧🇬 Flag For Bulgaria
• 🇧🇫 Flag For Burkina Faso
• 🇧🇮 Flag For Burundi
• 🇰🇭 Flag For Cambodia
• 🇨🇲 Flag For Cameroon
• 🇨🇦 Flag For Canada
• 🇨🇻 Flag For Cape Verde
• 🇰🇾 Flag For Cayman Islands
• 🇨🇫 Flag For Central African Republic
• 🇨🇱 Flag For Chile
• 🇨🇴 Flag For Colombia
• 🇰🇲 Flag For Comoros
• 🇨🇩 Flag For Democratic Republic Of The Congo
• 🇨🇬 Flag For Republic Of The Congo
• 🇨🇰 Flag For Cook Islands
• 🇨🇷 Flag For Costa Rica
• 🇭🇷 Flag For Croatia
• 🇨🇺 Flag For Cuba
• 🇨🇼 Flag For Curaçao
• 🇨🇾 Flag For Cyprus
• 🇨🇿 Flag For Czech Republic
• 🇩🇰 Flag For Denmark
• 🇩🇯 Flag For Djibouti
• 🇩🇲 Flag For Dominica
• 🇩🇴 Flag For Dominican Republic
• 🇪🇨 Flag For Ecuador
• 🇪🇬 Flag For Egypt
• 🇸🇻 Flag For El Salvador
• 🇬🇶 Flag For Equatorial Guinea
• 🇪🇷 Flag For Eritrea
• 🇪🇪 Flag For Estonia
• 🇪🇹 Flag For Ethiopia
• 🇫🇴 Flag For Faroe Islands
• 🇫🇯 Flag For Fiji
• 🇫🇮 Flag For Finland
• 🇬🇫 Flag For French Guiana
• 🇹🇫 Flag For French Southern Territories
• 🇬🇦 Flag For Gabon
• 🇬🇲 Flag For Gambia
• 🇬🇪 Flag For Georgia
• 🇬🇭 Flag For Ghana
• 🇬🇮 Flag For Gibraltar
• 🇬🇷 Flag For Greece
• 🇬🇩 Flag For Grenada
• 🇬🇵 Flag For Guadeloupe
• 🇬🇺 Flag For Guam
• 🇬🇹 Flag For Guatemala
• 🇬🇳 Flag For Guinea
• 🇬🇼 Flag For Guinea-Bissau
• 🇬🇾 Flag For Guyana
• 🇭🇹 Flag For Haiti
• 🇭🇳 Flag For Honduras
• 🇭🇰 Flag For Hong Kong
• 🇭🇺 Flag For Hungary
• 🇮🇸 Flag For Iceland
• 🇮🇳 Flag For India
• 🇮🇩 Flag For Indonesia
• 🇮🇷 Flag For Iran
• 🇮🇶 Flag For Iraq
• 🇮🇪 Flag For Ireland
• 🇮🇱 Flag For Israel
• 🇨🇮 Flag For Ivory Coast
• 🇯🇲 Flag For Jamaica
• 🇯🇴 Flag For Jordan
• 🇰🇿 Flag For Kazakhstan
• 🇰🇪 Flag For Kenya
• 🇰🇮 Flag For Kiribati
• 🇰🇼 Flag For Kuwait
• 🇰🇬 Flag For Kyrgyzstan
• 🇱🇦 Flag For Laos
• 🇱🇻 Flag For Latvia
• 🇱🇧 Flag For Lebanon
• 🇱🇸 Flag For Lesotho
• 🇱🇷 Flag For Liberia
• 🇱🇾 Flag For Libya
• 🇱🇮 Flag For Liechtenstein
• 🇱🇹 Flag For Lithuania
• 🇱🇺 Flag For Luxembourg
• 🇲🇴 Flag For Macau
• 🇲🇰 Flag For Macedonia
• 🇲🇬 Flag For Madagascar
• 🇲🇼 Flag For Malawi
• 🇲🇾 Flag For Malaysia
• 🇲🇻 Flag For Maldives
• 🇲🇱 Flag For Mali
• 🇲🇹 Flag For Malta
• 🇲🇶 Flag For Martinique
• 🇲🇷 Flag For Mauritania
• 🇲🇽 Flag For Mexico
• 🇲🇩 Flag For Moldova
• 🇲🇳 Flag For Mongolia
• 🇲🇪 Flag For Montenegro
• 🇲🇸 Flag For Montserrat
• 🇲🇦 Flag For Morocco
• 🇲🇿 Flag For Mozambique
• 🇲🇲 Flag For Myanmar
• 🇳🇦 Flag For Namibia
• 🇳🇵 Flag For Nepal
• 🇳🇱 Flag For Netherlands
• 🇳🇨 Flag For New Caledonia
• 🇳🇿 Flag For New Zealand
• 🇳🇮 Flag For Nicaragua
• 🇳🇪 Flag For Niger
• 🇳🇬 Flag For Nigeria
• 🇳🇺 Flag For Niue
• 🇰🇵 Flag For North Korea
• 🇲🇵 Flag For Northern Mariana Islands
• 🇳🇴 Flag For Norway
• 🇴🇲 Flag For Oman
• 🇵🇰 Flag For Pakistan
• 🇵🇼 Flag For Palau
• 🇵🇸 Flag For Palestinian Territory
• 🇵🇦 Flag For Panama
• 🇵🇬 Flag For Papua New Guinea
• 🇵🇾 Flag For Paraguay
• 🇵🇪 Flag For Peru
• 🇵🇭 Flag For Philippines
• 🇵🇱 Flag For Poland
• 🇵🇹 Flag For Portugal
• 🇵🇷 Flag For Puerto Rico
• 🇶🇦 Flag For Qatar
• 🇷🇪 Flag For Réunion
• 🇷🇴 Flag For Romania
• 🇷🇼 Flag For Rwanda
• 🇼🇸 Flag For Samoa
• 🇸🇲 Flag For San Marino
• 🇸🇹 Flag For Sao Tome and Principe
• 🇸🇦 Flag For Saudi Arabia
• 🇸🇳 Flag For Senegal
• 🇷🇸 Flag For Serbia
• 🇸🇨 Flag For Seychelles
• 🇸🇱 Flag For Sierra Leone
• 🇸🇬 Flag For Singapore
• 🇸🇰 Flag For Slovakia
• 🇸🇮 Flag For Slovenia
• 🇸🇧 Flag For Solomon Islands
• 🇸🇴 Flag For Somalia
• 🇿🇦 Flag For South Africa
• 🇸🇸 Flag For South Sudan
• 🇱🇰 Flag For Sri Lanka
• 🇸🇩 Flag For Sudan
• 🇸🇷 Flag For Suriname
• 🇸🇿 Flag For Swaziland
• 🇸🇪 Flag For Sweden
• 🇨🇭 Flag For Switzerland
• 🇸🇾 Flag For Syria
• 🇹🇯 Flag For Tajikistan
• 🇹🇿 Flag For Tanzania
• 🇹🇭 Flag For Thailand
• 🇹🇱 Flag For Timor-Leste
• 🇹🇬 Flag For Togo
• 🇹🇴 Flag For Tonga
• 🇹🇹 Flag For Trinidad and Tobago
• 🇹🇳 Flag For Tunisia
• 🇹🇷 Flag For Turkey
• 🇹🇲 Flag For Turkmenistan
• 🇹🇨 Flag For Turks and Caicos Islands
• 🇹🇻 Flag For Tuvalu
• 🇺🇬 Flag For Uganda
• 🇺🇦 Flag For Ukraine
• 🇦🇪 Flag For United Arab Emirates
• 🇺🇾 Flag For Uruguay
• 🇺🇿 Flag For Uzbekistan
• 🇻🇺 Flag For Vanuatu
• 🇻🇪 Flag For Venezuela
• 🇻🇳 Flag For Vietnam
• 🇾🇪 Flag For Yemen
• 🇿🇲 Flag For Zambia
• 🇿🇼 Flag For Zimbabwe

Above: The emoji flags shown here in the OS X emoji palette.

A common request is for individual flags for England, Scotland, or Wales. The Unicode Standard uses ISO 3166-1 as the basis for determining which two-letter codes translate into country flags.

Above: No Emoji Flags for England, Scotland, or Wales

Under this standard, the United Kingdom flag is the one chosen to represent these countries. They are unlikely to appear in future updates, unless ISO 3166-1 changes accordingly.

Technology Images

To keep pace with new product releases, Apple has updated the watch, computer, and mobile phone emojis to represent the Apple Watch, iPhone 6, and current iMac.

Backward Compatibility

What happens when you send a new emoji to someone who hasn't upgraded yet? Or who uses an Android or Windows device?

As an example, if the brown version of the Thumbs Up Sign is sent to an iOS 8.3 or OS X 10.10.3 device, this will display as intended:a brown thumbs up.

Should the recipient have an older iOS device (or any other OS that doesn't not yet support the skin tone modifiers) they will see a regular thumbs up emoji, with an empty square displayed after it. The meaning is not entirely lost, just the piece of information that their OS does not understand (the skin tone modifier character).

Flags that are not supported by other systems will instead display their two-letter country code. For instance, 🇨🇦 Flag For Canada displays right here in this post as a flag for some people, or the letters CA for those on systems that do not yet include this character.

What else?

🏊 Swimmer now wears goggles. No more sore eyes.

👯 Woman With Bunny Ears includes more prominent bunny ears on the two girls.

💃 Dancer now has eyes and hands. Mouth and nose upgrades not yet available.

🙏 Person With Folded Hands no longer displays a burst of light behind the hands.

Person having a 🛀 Bath gains closed eyes.

Notable omissions in this update: Single-parent families, emojis with red hair, the previously-noted middle finger emoji, and for that matter, the rest of the Unicode 7 emoji list.

Related

• Windows 10 Emoji Changelog
• Android 5.0 Emoji Changelog
• Unicode 8 Emoji Additions

The results are in: diverse emoji support is either inclusive, divisive, overdue, or not even necessary.

Separate from the debate on the necessity of skin tone modifiers, is the question of a redhead¹ emoji.

Above: An Emoji With Red Hair. Image: Ginger Parrot

Hair, There, Everywhere

Unicode makes note the following regarding emoji hair color, and how it should be implemented in a diverse emoji world:

Dark hair is recommended for generic images that include hair. People of every skin tone can have black (or very dark brown) hair, so it is more neutral. One exception is Person With Blond Hair, which needs to have blond hair regardless of skin tone.

This is exactly how Apple approached the default emoji faces in the developer builds of iOS 8.3. However the public release of iOS 8.3 curiously changed² the default hair color to yellow:

Outside the recommendation for default emoji hair color, the Unicode Consortium does not make specific mention of which hair colors should be used when a skin tone modifier is applied.

In fact, Unicode singles out discussion of "different hair styles and color, use of eyeglasses, various kinds of facial hair, different body shapes, different headwear, and so on" and states that:

It is beyond the scope of Unicode to provide an encoding-based mechanism for representing every aspect of human appearance diversity that emoji users might want to indicate.

Essentially, the choices regarding hair color for each skin tone is to be decided by each company when implementing their own emoji artwork.

What Apple Decided

Here is the current range of skin tone modifiers, and the hair colors that Apple assigns to each. Using the boy emoji as the example:

Emoji | Skin Tone Modifier | Skin Tone | Hair Color
------------- | ------------- | ------------- | ------------- 👦🏻 | Fitzpatrick Type-1-2 | Pale | Black 👦🏼 | Fitzpatrick Type-3 | Cream White | Blond 👦🏽 | Fitzpatrick Type-4 | Moderate Brown | Moderate Brown 👦🏾 | Fitzpatrick Type-5 | Dark Brown | Dark Brown 👦🏿 | Fitzpatrick Type-6 | Black | Black

The emoji modifier for the pale skin tone combines the two types on the Fitzpatrick Scale, into a single shade named Emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick Type-1-2.

Type 1 on the Fitzpatrick Scale is defined as:

Pale white; blond or red hair; blue eyes; freckles — Always burns, never tans

Type 2 on the Fitzpatrick Scale is defined as:

White; fair; blond or red hair; blue, green, or hazel eyes — Usually burns, tans minimally

Emphasis mine. So why does the pale boy have black hair in Apple's emoji font? The following hair colors would more closely match the descriptions above:

Above: Mockup with Type 1-2 on the Fitzpatrick Scale showing red hair

The Case Against Red Hair

Red hair is not very common. Very few people, as a percentage of the worldwide population, have red hair:

Red hair occurs naturally in 1–2% of the human population. It occurs more frequently (2–6%) in people of northern or western European ancestry, and less frequently in other populations.

Was this a factor in Apple's decision to omit a redhead from the emoji lineup? If the pale-skin (Type 1-2) emoji had red hair, what option would remain to represent those with white skin and dark hair? Namely those from large slice of Asia.

Finally, there are cross-platform implications. What Apple decides to do with emoji hair color does not mandate that Google or Microsoft do the same.

A Possible Solution

Individual skin tone modifiers for Fitzpatrick Type 1, and Fitzpatrick Type 2 could exist: one with red hair, one with black hair.

Above: Mockup of how six skin tone modifiers could look

Should this be implemented, Unicode may need to become more prescriptive in how skin tone modifiers should represent hair color.

One thing is clear: decisions like these are trickier than they may first appear, and while Unicode may set the standards, it still remains the platform-vendor's choice how to implement those.

It will be interesting to see how these questions are addressed when skin tone modifier support comes to Android and Windows.

Related

• List of Emoji Skin Tone Modifiers
• Unicode Emoji Technical Report #51
• Redhead Emoji Petition

The iOS 9 beta 1 released to developers this week at WWDC contains a new flags category on the emoji keyboard, support for new flags, and placeholders for additional flags that might be on the way.

Above: Flags for Antarctica, Chad, Christmas Island, Greenland, Jersey and Vatican City are some of the new flags in iOS 9

A total of 29 (update: 33) new country flags are included in iOS 9 that were not previously supported on iOS or the Mac. Apple added 198 new flags to iOS 8.3 in April of 2015. Now the following 29 countries get their own flags in iOS 9:

• 🇦🇽 Flag For Åland Islands
• 🇦🇶 Flag For Antarctica
• 🇮🇴 Flag For British Indian Ocean Territory
• 🇧🇶 Flag For Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
• 🇹🇩 Flag For Chad
• 🇨🇽 Flag For Christmas Island
• 🇨🇨 Flag For Cocos (Keeling) Islands
• 🇫🇰 Flag For Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
• 🇵🇫 Flag For French Polynesia
• 🇬🇱 Flag For Greenland
• 🇬🇬 Flag For Guernsey
• 🇮🇲 Flag For Isle of Man
• 🇯🇪 Flag For Jersey
• 🇲🇭 Flag For Marshall Islands
• 🇲🇺 Flag For Mauritius
• 🇾🇹 Flag For Mayotte
• 🇫🇲 Flag For Micronesia
• 🇲🇨 Flag For Monaco
• 🇳🇷 Flag For Nauru
• 🇳🇫 Flag For Norfolk Island
• 🇵🇳 Flag For Pitcairn
• 🇧🇱 Flag For Saint Barthélemy
• 🇸🇭 Flag For Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan Da Cunha
• 🇵🇲 Flag For Saint Pierre and Miquelon
• 🇬🇸 Flag For South Georgia
• 🇹🇰 Flag For Tokelau
• 🇻🇦 Flag For Vatican City
• 🇼🇫 Flag For Wallis and Futuna
• 🇪🇭 Flag For Western Sahara

In addition to these new flags, placeholders are now showing for Bouvet Island, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Taiwan and United States Minor Outlying Islands. The images for these country flag emojis are not yet visible, and instead appear as an ellipsis on the keyboard that inserts the relevant two-letter regional indicator.

Above: iOS 9 developer beta showing a placeholder for Flag For Taiwan

In total, 190 new flags show on the iOS 9 emoji keyboard, plus five placeholder ellipsis's. This is made up of 126 flags that were previously supported (but hidden from the iOS 8.3 keyboard), plus the newly-supported country flags listed above.

Access All The Flags

For those wanting access to all 208 country flags supported today, Quartz has partnered with Emojipedia to release an iOS keyboard app, focussed solely on this task.

The emoji flags app includes all flag emojis supported by iOS, listing country names next to each flag. No more confusing 🇮🇪 Ireland for 🇮🇹 Italy when boasting about travel abroad.

This is a free download from the App Store and requires iOS 8.3 or above.

The Flag Deciders

The Unicode Standard defines emoji flags by their two-letter country codes, which effectively absolves the Unicode Consortium from deciding which countries earn an emoji flag; deferring the list to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code standard.

It is then over to individual companies, such as Apple or Google, to decide which countries on this list gain an emoji representation.

At the time of writing, no version of Windows includes an emoji flags. Windows displays the two-letter country code (otherwise known as a regional indicator) instead of a flag for all countries.

New Flags Category In iOS 9

The current developer beta of iOS 9 from Apple now shows a new Flags category between Travel & Places and Objects & Symbols, with all supported flags displayed (except one ¹) directly on the keyboard.

Above: iOS 9 developer beta showing a new flags category

As this is beta software, there is no guarantee that these changes will make their way to the final release later in the year.

Still absent from emoji support in iOS 9 in the current beta is the long-awaited middle finger emoji (supported by Windows 10) or any of the other Unicode 7 emojis approved in 2014.

Update: June 13, 2015 Twitter user vXBaKeRXv discovered that three regions of France have also updated images in iOS 9, and now display their (unofficial) local flags instead of the Flag For France. The updates regions are:

• 🇬🇵 Flag For Guadeloupe
• 🇲🇶 Flag For Martinique
• 🇷🇪 Flag For Réunion

Interestingly, the Flag For Réunion is only one of many contenders to replace the flag. The Wikipedia entry for the flag shows other current proposals. The image that Apple is using is not the flag shown as the Unofficial Flag of Réunion.

Update: June 24, 2015 The second developer beta of iOS 9 has been released, and includes some changes.

The 🇪🇺 Flag For European Union is no longer hidden. It now displays on the emoji keyboard, alongside other country flags.

Four more previously-unsupported flags fave been added:

• 🇧🇻 Flag For Bouvet Island
• 🇭🇲 Flag For Heard Island and McDonald Islands
• 🇸🇯 Flag For Svalbard and Jan Mayen
• 🇺🇲 Flag For United States Minor Outlying Islands

The only flag that remains unsupported as of iOS 9 beta 2 is:

• 🇹🇼 Flag For Taiwan

Unlike iOS 9 beta 1, the second beta of iOS 9 does not include a placeholder ellipsis for the Taiwanese Flag on the emoji keyboard.

Android supports the Flag For Taiwan in Android 5.0 and above.

Above: Flag For Taiwan displayed on Android 5.0 Lollipop

On a related note, Kosovo does not have a permanent ISO 3166-1 code (yet). A temporary code of XK has been issued, but this has not proved sufficient to give it an emoji flag in iOS 9 beta 2.

Update: July 9, 2015 The third developer beta of iOS 9 has been released, and includes the 🇹🇼 Flag For Taiwan Emoji for the first time.

OS X 10.11 beta 3 does not (yet?) have this flag, and displays it as the ◻️ White Medium Square Emoji

Also new in iOS 9 beta 3 is the inclusion of the 🇽🇰 Flag For Kosovo Emoji and the following flags which are considered exceptional reservations in ISO 3166-1 alpha-2:

• 🇦🇨 Flag For Ascension Island
• 🇮🇨 Flag For Canary Islands
• 🇪🇦 Flag For Ceuta, Melilla
• 🇨🇵 Flag For Clipperton Island
• 🇩🇬 Flag For Diego Garcia
• 🇹🇦 Flag For Tristan da Cunha

Exceptional reservations are regional indicator codes "reserved at the request of national ISO member bodies, governments and international organisations".

Related

• Android Adds 209 New Emoji Flags
• Windows 10 Emoji Changelog

The Unicode Consortium has today released Unicode 8, which includes 37 new emojis such as the Face With Rolling Eyes, Hugging Face, Taco, Cheese Wedge and Hockey — both ice and field varieties.

In addition, five emoji modifiers are included with Unicode 8, bringing the total number of new characters to 41.

Left-Right: Unicode 8 example images for Face With Rolling Eyes, Hugging Face, Taco, Cheese Wedge.

Of course, the Unicode Standard Version 8.0.0 (as it is officially known) includes more than just emoji updates, but given the nature of this blog, that is what I will focus on here. Sample images for emojis in this post are for demonstration purposes only.

👉 View the full list of Unicode 8 Emoji Approvals

Emoji Creation: A Timeline

Who chose these emojis? Can I use them today? How do these updates relate to the recent emoji changes in iOS 8.3, Android 5, or Windows 10?

All good questions, but first let's take a step through the emoji creation timeline.

• An emoji is proposed, either by a public submission to Unicode, or via a Unicode Consortium member¹

• The Unicode Emoji Subcommittee² (Yes, that's a thing) discusses and reviews proposals based on a number of criteria.

• Prior to Unicode 8, updates to the Unicode Standard were almost exclusively based on compatibility with existing systems and encoding standards. Times change, and now the following criteria³ are also considered:

• Expected usage level. Is there a high expected frequency of use?
• Image distinctiveness. Is there a clearly recognizable image of physical objects that could serve as a paradigm, that would be distinct enough from other emoji?
• Disparity. Does the proposed pictograph fill in a gap in existing types of emoji? For example, in Unicode 7.0 we had Tiger, but not Lion; Church but not Mosque.
• Frequently requested. Is it often requested of the Unicode Consortium, or of Unicode member companies? For example, Hot Dog or Unicorn.
• Generality. Is the proposed character overly specific?
• Open-ended. Is it just one of many, with no special reason to favor it over others of that type?
• Representable already. Can the concept be represented by another emoji or sequence?

• This is a distinct change from Unicode 7, which was primarily released to address compatibility with the Microsoft Webdings font. The result is that these are approved emojis, but not supported on iOS or Android:

Above: Webdings lives on in Unicode 7. Source: Microsoft

• The next release of the Unicode Standard is version 9.0, planned for release in mid-2016. The proposals have already been accepted as candidates. That's right - Unicode 8 was just released and emoji candidates are already in place for Unicode 9.

• Changes may be made to these candidates: additions, removals, or name changes are possible, though usually kept to a minimum. Consider the Unicode 8 candidates, which changed very little⁴ from candidate stage, until being approved today.

Above: Candidates for Unicode 9 are already available. Example images for the Face Palm, Shrug, and Fingers Crossed

And Then...

...we wait.

You see, just because an emoji gets approved, it's of no use to anyone until fonts are released that include these emojis on major platforms such as iOS, Android, OS X and Windows.

Apple jumped ahead with Unicode 8 and provided support for the Emoji (Skin Tone) Modifiers in iOS 8.3, despite the Unicode 8 Standard being a draft at that stage.

Above: Skin Tone Modifiers are part of Unicode 8. Already supported by Apple in iOS and OS X.

Yet the middle finger emoji lingers unsupported by most (but not all) platforms, despite being approved as part of Unicode 7 in June of 2014.

What I'm saying is that if you are like Roger Federer and craving that Popcorn emoji, it's now in the hands of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and you might be waiting a while.

Roger Federer: Fan of the Popcorn Emoji

A Glimmer Of Hope

Unicode 7 may have been a misfire, due to the sheer number of new emojis approved, and the utter irrelevance of most inclusions.

Above: Three Button Mouse and Telephone On Top Of Modem: included in Unicode 7 for compatibility with Webdings

It's easy to see why Apple or Google may have been reluctant to put resources into emoji-fying this list of of outdated technology, despite there being some gems amongst the list (shopping bags gets a high number of requests, as does the bed).

Jason Snell and Myke Hurley touched on the subject of emoji fragmentation in their Upgrade podcast this week, and it goes to show that even the most tech-savvy amongst us can still struggle to know which emojis work on which platforms, or simply different versions of the same operating system.

Hopefully with the focus on relevant, popular and useful emojis in this update, we will see them implemented in a more timely manner than has been seen in the past.

Related

• Announcing Unicode Standard Version 8.0 on the Unicode Blog
• More Emoji Flags Come To iOS
• Unicode 8 Emoji List

A proposal to update the Unicode Standard to allow new emoji flag types has been released by the Unicode Consortium.

If approved, this would allow England, Scotland, and Wales to have their own emoji flags; as well as US states (such as Texas or California), the United Nations, and other regions around the world that for one reason or another do not get an emoji flag under the current arrangements.

The proposed details suggest combining the Waving White Flag emoji from Unicode 7 as the base character for these new type of flags. This will be joined to additional characters representing letters or numbers for region and subregion. For instance GB-SCT for Scotland, or US-TX for Texas.

Above: The relevant flag emoji would be displayed when these character combinations are used

Platform vendors such as Apple, Google or Microsoft will be free to pick and choose which region flags to support, based on factors such as population, frequency of use, or popularity of requests¹.

Systems without support for this new type of subregion flags would show the Waving White Flag in a dotted rectangle, with the relevant characters following it.

This is similar to the current implementation of regular emoji flags which displays the two-letter country code when a flag cannot be displayed.

Above: Flag For Taiwan shows as two regional indicator letters on iOS, and an emoji flag on Android

All the juicy details of this proposal can be found in PRI #299. Public feedback is being sought on this proposal.

Related

• More Emoji Flags Come To iOS
• Android Adds 209 New Emoji Flags
• Windows 10 Emoji Changelog

Your emoji suggestions now have a home on the web.

To celebrate World Emoji Day, we have created EmojiVote. This is a subreddit moderated by Emojipedia, for the sole purpose of measuring interest in new emoji suggestions from the public.

Submit an emoji idea and upvote the suggestions that you want to see approved in future versions of the Unicode Standard. We put a few candidates in the list to get things started:

Above: EmojiVote on Reddit. (Spot the Twemoji images used in the template!)

When pondering which ideas to submit, you may notice updated example images for some of the Unicode 9 emoji candidates on Emojipedia.

Our first four creations are shown below, as a demonstration of how the final emoji artwork could look if these are approved next year.

Shrug Emoji and Face Palm Emoji

Image Source: Emojipedia

Bacon Emoji and Nauseated Face Emoji

Image Source: Emojipedia

Look out for more example images in future, as we provide a glimpse at how the new candidate emojis could look.

And finally, please be aware that EmojiVote is not an official channel for submitting proposals for new Unicode Characters.

Instead, this is a way for the public to make their feelings known about which new emojis they want to see, in the simplest way possible.

Happy World Emoji Day everyone, and let the voting begin!

Related

• Unicode 8: What, And When
• The Trouble With Redheads

Update: Windows 10 has been released to the public as a free upgrade on July 29, 2015. All emoji updates listed below are included.

Windows 10 is now the first major OS to support the Middle Finger Emoji, Slightly Smiling Face Emoji and Slightly Frowning Face Emoji.

Skin tone modifiers, the middle finger, and a sassier information desk person are amongst the emoji updates in Windows 10.

Scheduled for release mid-2015, Microsoft brings a range of changes to their color emoji font, Segoe UI Emoji, in Windows 10. This includes the emojis shown above:

• 🙆🏿 Face With OK Gesture With Black Skin Tone
• 🖕 Reversed Hand With Middle Finger Extended
• 😳 Flushed Face
• 💁🏼 Information Desk Person With Cream White Skin Tone

Timeline Of Windows Emoji Support

Some may be surprised to learn that emoji support on Windows is not new. It dates back to 2012, with the release of Windows 8. The lack of support for emoji when using Chrome for Windows may be a factor in this.

• July 2009: Windows 7 is released, with no emoji support. Emoji only becomes included as part of the Unicode Standard in 2009, and is not in any form of widespread use outside of Japan.

• October 2012: Windows 8 is released, which includes emoji support out of the box; but only in black and white. Windows 7 receives an update which installs the same Segoe UI Symbol font used in Windows 8.

• October 2013: Windows 8.1 is released, which includes support for color emoji for the first time, provided by a new Segoe UI Emoji font. This uses the same images as Windows 8, but shown in color for the first time.

• July 2015: Windows 10 is to be released. This is the first update to emoji characters since Windows 8.1 in 2013. There has been a lot to catch up to do in the past 18 months.

Left-Right: Haircut Emoji in Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10

Gray Is Windows Neutral

Taking on board the Unicode recommendation that the default skin tone of emoji people should be generic (nonhuman) in appearance, Windows now displays gray-skinned people as the race-neutral default. This is used when no specific skin tone is chosen.

Google and Apple use a bright shade of yellow as the default skin tone, making Microsoft the first to use gray as the default. This is the result:

Above: Windows 8 defaults to cream/white-skinned people, while Windows 10 defaults to gray skin

Diversity

A choice of skin tones is available for most human-looking emojis, which fall into the previously discussed range of five skin tone modifiers.

Many human emojis in Windows use the bald-man (?) character, which neatly avoids the issue of hair color altogether.

Left-Right: Person With Folded Hands shown with default appearance, pale, cream white, moderate brown, dark brown, and black skin tones.

The Middle Finger Has Arrived

The middle finger emoji was approved as part of Unicode 7 in mid-2014, yet has curiously remained absent from iOS, OS X, Android, and Windows. Until now.

Presenting the middle finger emoji, included¹ with Windows 10:

If this is not expressive enough, a range of skin tone options exist from the pale middle finger, through to the black middle finger.

Above: Middle Finger Emoji shown in default gray, next to the diverse skin tone options.

Less likely to grab headlines are some of the more subtle changes to the emojis included with Windows 10.

Most of the following updates focus on bridging the gap between how some faces appear on other platforms, and how they appear on Windows.

People

😌 Relieved Face loses its comical sheepishness, and now appears more calm with eyes closed, and a smile:

😖 Confounded Face appears more annoyed than the previously high-eyebrowed appearance. Has an M-shaped mouth:

😤 Face With Look Of Triumph now directly matches its counterpart from Apple and Google.

😫 Tired Face has lost its quiet yawn (which would have made for a good sleepy face), and now appears tired in the context of being fed up ("I'm so tired of this!"), or exhausted:

😰 Face With Open Mouth And Cold Sweat appears more upset than the previous happy-sweating face:

😱 Face Screaming In Fear has hands on either side of the face, more closely resembling the artwork from Home Alone iOS and Android:

😳 Flushed Face has shaded cheeks, implied to be blushing. Has black-and-white striped circles instead of rosey-red cheeks:

😷 Face With Medical Mask replaces what might have been a dust mask with a surgical / medical mask:

💁 Information Desk Person now resembles Apple's iconic version of this emoji, showing a woman with her hand out to one side. Often used as a sassy emoji, Microsoft ups the ante by giving her a wink. Too much?

Left-Right: Information Desk Person on Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and iOS 8.3

Unicode 7 Additions

🙁 Slightly Frowning Face and 🙂 Slightly Smiling Face have been added in Windows 10. Approved as part of Unicode 7 in 2014, this pair are not available on prior versions of Windows, nor iOS, OS X, or Android:

🖖 Raised Hand With Part Between Middle And Ring Fingers (aka the Vulcan Salute) has been added to Windows 10. Only just beaten to the punch by Apple in its 2015 Emoji Update:

🖐 Raised Hand With Fingers Splayed looks like a person holding up the number five on one hand. Included for the first time on Windows 10:

The full set of Unicode 7 characters are supported on Windows 10, but only the five above-mentioned emojis are given an emoji presentation. The rest appear to be black-and-white (text-presentation) glyphs brought over from Webdings.

Above: Five new emojis highlighted in green. The rest are black and white symbols not yet implemented with color emoji presentations

What Else?

💇 Haircut now displays a woman having her hair cut, instead of scissors and a comb standing alone:

🀄 Mahjong Tile Red Dragon gains some color with the red 中 character on the tile:

🎠 Carousel Horse now faces to the left, instead of the right. This now matches the carousel-horse direction on other platforms:

Missing

Flags remain unsupported on Windows, which instead displays the two-letter regional code for each country.

Left-Right: Emoji flags on OS X, two-letter regional codes on Windows 10.

Support for different family combinations (two mothers or two fathers) and same-gender couples is also absent from this update.

Implementation details

Support for color emojis in Windows 10 is limited to the new Microsoft Edge browser, and these only appear when the specific color emoji font is specified.

As such, it's not uncommon to see the black and white (text presentation) variants of these emojis across many websites and in other apps, which may limit their appeal.

Above: Windows 10 uses black and white emojis in most apps, except Microsoft Edge

By comparison, OS X defaults to the color emoji font when a color emoji is used, regardless of browser or font. For users, this is a more consistent implementation.

For emoji fans, Windows 10 is a decent update from Windows 8.1, but plenty of room for improvement still exists.

Related

• Android 5.0 Emoji Changelog
• Apple 2015 Emoji Changelog
• Unicode 8 Emoji Additions

The candidate list for Unicode 9 is taking shape, with the final list of new emojis scheduled for approval in mid-2016.

38 emoji characters have been accepted as candidates for the 2016 Unicode update, including Face Palm, Selfie, Shrug, Fingers Crossed, and Pregnant Woman.

We commissioned a complete¹ set of mockups to show how these might look if approved².

Above: Emojipedia Mockups of Unicode 9 Emoji Candidates

Created by the talented Joshua M. Jones, these emoji mockups imagine a world in which Unicode 9 has been approved, and is ready to use on your devices.

Gender Pairs

Of of the factors in deciding which emojis are approved for inclusion in Unicode 9 has been the concept of a gender-matched pair.

Bride finds a groom

Man In Tuxedo has been listed as the gender pair for the Bride emoji. Of course, he can be used in other contexts too. Hence the name that describes his clothing, instead of calling him "groom".

Dancer gets a male partner

The original Dancer emoji was not intended to be male or female.

Popular usage has resulted in Apple's salsa dancing woman being the more common implementation. As such, Unicode 9 introduces a the Man Dancing Emoji³, allowing the regular dancer to stay female.

Father Christmas is paired with Mother Christmas.

Santa Claus gets reunited with his wife Mrs Claus, which has the Unicode name of Mother Christmas.

Princess and Prince

This was an easy one. The Princess emoji pre-dates skin tone modifiers, and has traditionally been the blonde-haired woman. To create the Prince emoji, the Person With Blond Hair gets a Crown.

Family

Completing the family unit is a Pregnant Woman emoji. This emoji was considered missing, with family member emojis already in place for the Baby, right through to Older Man and Older Woman.

Faces

Candidates for new emoji faces are an eclectic mix of requests to consortium members, as well as inclusions for backward compatibility (primarily with Yahoo Messenger).

• 🤠 Face With Cowboy Hat
• 🤡 Clown Face
• 🤢 Nauseated Face
• 🤣 Rolling On The Floor Laughing
• 🤤 Drooling Face
• 🤥 Lying Face
• 🤳 Selfie
• 🤦 Face Palm
• 🤷 Shrug

Above: Emojipedia Mockups of Unicode 9 Faces

Hand Gestures

The fingers crossed emoji has been very high on the list of requests to Emojipedia, as well as to Unicode Consortium Members.

Proposals from iDiversicons include two fist-bump emojis and the handshake. The Call Me Hand is a compatibility inclusion (from Yahoo Messenger).

• 🤙 Call Me Hand
• 🤚 Raised Back Of Hand
• 🤛 Left-Facing Fist
• 🤜 Right-Facing Fist
• 🤝 Handshake
• 🤞 Hand With First And Index Finger Crossed

Above: Emojipedia Mockups of Unicode 9 Hand Gestures

Food and Drink

A selection of new food and drink related emojis represents some of the more popular[^potato] requests to consortium members.

Clinking glasses is expected to have high frequency of use, due to its association with celebration or success.

• 🥐 Croissant
• 🥑 Avocado
• 🥒 Cucumber
• 🥓 Bacon
• 🥔 Potato
• 🥕 Carrot
• 🥂 Clinking Glasses

Above: Emojipedia Mockups of Unicode 9 Food and Drink emoji candidates

Animals

Unicode 8 included missing animals that had associated zodiac symbols, such as the lion and crab.

Unicode 9 endeavours to include other animals that are common around the world, but not yet included in the emoji set.

• 🦊 Fox Face
• 🦅 Eagle
• 🦆 Duck
• 🦇 Bat
• 🦉 Owl
• 🦈 Shark

Above: Emojipedia Mockups of Unicode 9 Animals

Misc

For those requiring emojis to represent genuine (or sarcastic) sorrow, the Wilted Flower and Black Heart are the candidates to achieve this.

Black Heart is notable due to the existence of two other emojis with black heart in their names, which are actually red.

• 🥀 Wilted Flower
• 🖤 Black Heart

Above: Emojipedia Mockups of the Wilted Flower and Black Heart

In addition, if the transport section of your emoji keyboard was not comprehensive enough already, here are two more modes of transport, and a traffic sign.

• 🛴 Scooter
• 🛵 Motor Scooter
• 🛑 Octagonal Sign Above: Emojipedia Mockups of Unicode 9 Transport Additions

Potential Inclusions

There are still some emoji proposals that may become candidates prior to next year's release. These are not yet accepted as candidates, but have a likely chance of making it to the candidate list this year.

We didn't create mockups for these proposals, but here is the list anyway:

• Butterfly
• Deer
• Gorilla
• Lizard
• Rhinoceros
• Leg
• Sneezing Face
• Baguette Bread
• Green Salad
• Stuffed Flatbread
• Shallow Pan Of Food
• Tumbler Glass
• Drum With Drumsticks
• Shopping Trolley
• Spoon

Let's check back in a year or two⁴ to see how closely any of these match the completed emoji images from Apple. Or from other platform vendors, for that matter.

A note to anyone wishing to use these emoji mockups on the web: please feel free to do so, provided a link is included to the relevant Emojipedia page (or this article) as the source. Thanks!

Above: The iOS emoji keyboard could look something like this if these emojis are approved. Photo: Jeremy Burge

Related

• Flags For England, Scotland, Wales, More
• The Trouble With Redheads
• Announcing EmojiVote
• Apple 2015 Emoji Changelog

Cracking eggs; a non-spiral sea shell; that black shirt. And who can forget the gavel emoji.

A look at some iPhone emojis from a bygone era as well as what the future holds, in my article at Six Colors.

Some of the most highly requested emoji platforms are now supported on Emojipedia. Our latest site update is now live, including emojis from Samsung, Facebook, and Emoji One.

Samsung

Firstly, there is the Samsung emoji set. These glossy emojis appear on devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5.

Yet to be covered in detail on the Emojipedia Blog; the Samsung emojis are some of the most expressive of all the major platforms.

Despite running Android, the Galaxy series of phones shows Samsung's own emoji font¹, instead of the Stock Android Emojis from the Noto Color Emoji font.

Facebook

Like Twitter, Facebook uses its own emoji-replacement-images for users of the desktop website. This works around issues of emoji compatibility² and also gives a chance for branding in the emoji set.

Generally displayed on Facebook as small 16x16 pixel art, these graphics are much clearer when viewed at a larger size.

Emoji One

Emoji One is an open source emoji project, which is available for use on sites such as Discourse.org and Slack.

These images are available for use on any web project, and one of the first sets to include all the emojis for Unicode 7.0. I love that spy emoji!

Updates

In addition to new emoji platforms, Emojipedia now has some clearer images for the Windows 8.1 color emoji set³.

Twemoji from Twitter also gets a boost to the image size, making those details clearer than they have been in the past.

Notably missing from the above list is the latest from Microsoft, covered recently in our Windows 10 Emoji Changelog.

You may have also noticed that some older versions of the emoji artwork is not currently available. Stay tuned while we work on a way to get that returned.

Hello, and welcome to 2015: The year that we might view in hindsight as the start of peak display-ad on the web.

We're not immune to this at Emojipedia. As much as we love what we do — documenting emoji changelogs; creating mockups for new emoji candidates; as well as our ever-growing database of emoji images and search terms — all of this is paid for by display ads.

The trade-off for display ads is pretty clear:

• Site has ads; can remain free to access
• Site has no ads; must find another source of revenue

With iOS 9 just around the corner, much has been written how it supports ad-blocking apps; and what this means for websites using display ads as their primary source of income¹.

In response to an article from Jean-Louis Gassée, Dave Mark on Loop Insight asks:

Where will the revenue come from? As ad blocking becomes standard practice, will mobile ads simply dry up and, eventually, disappear?

Rather than wait around to find out, we're trying something new at Emojipedia. Starting today:

Currently, Emojipedia sees about 12 million pages loaded each month, and this is increasing. In the next year, I expect to see over 160 million emoji searches on Emojipedia.

If you didn't just watch the talented Jonathan Mann tell you about our goal of dropping ads, let me explain:

• Every emoji page on Emojipedia now has a section for a sponsor
• When that emoji is adopted, its sponsor gets a space for their name, message, and URL on that page
• As soon as an emoji is adopted, all the ads disappear from that page: No header ads. No footer ads. No ads in the middle of all those cute-yet-puzzling-emoji-images.

So come take a look at our updated site and tell us what you think of the changes. See how nice the adopted emoji pages look?

Is this a model for all websites looking to avoid the pitfalls of ad blocking? Probably not, but I hope that it is one way for advertisers to get through to users, in a way that doesn't detract from the task at hand.

I will report back.

(if you know a company that should adopt an emoji, point them to our Emoji Adoption page)