An interview with an Apple emoji designer

https://shadycharacters.co.uk/2026/06/ollie-wagner/

by nate • 1 month ago

124 83 1 month ago

shadycharacters.co.uk

amelius2• 1 month ago

In case anyone is actually interested in the emoji:

https://emojipedia.org/apple

Aissen• 1 month 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.

amelius2• 1 month 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.

TazeTSchnitzel• 1 month ago

These are very nostalgic. The way Apple's emoji look has subtly changed since then.

Tepix• 1 month ago

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

LoganDark• 1 month ago

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

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

NoSalt2• 1 month ago

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

reaperducer2• 1 month ago

Did you print it out?

NoSalt2• 1 month ago

LOL

CharlesW• 1 month ago

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

alnwlsn• 1 month ago

Serif font?

CGMthrowaway2• 1 month ago

The letters are super fuzzy (a ton of anti-aliasing, even on the bottoms of the letters where it's not needed)

holistio3• 1 month ago

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

wpm• 1 month ago

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

Jtarii• 1 month ago

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

holistio3• 1 month ago

I will be. Thanks.

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

I love walnuts.

ErigmolCt5• 1 month ago

Also "petty, small change" is exactly the right scale for a walnut emoji campaign

j1000• 1 month ago

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

dagmx• 1 month 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.

wvbdmp• 1 month 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…

hbn2• 1 month ago

I was looking for a pirate emoji like 5 minutes ago. I'm sure it's not the first time but I'm super surprised that still isn't in there. Seems so obvious.

frollogaston8• 1 month ago

Well there's a pirate flag

carrozo• 1 month ago

still no Guillotine Emoji either, although not for a lack of trying.

https://www.carrozo.com/guillotine-emoji

hbn2• 1 month ago

I love the pregnant man emoji, I use it all the time after a big meal

asdff• 1 month ago

No more gun emoji. Humanity could not be trusted with the cartoon revolver emoji. Take your squirtgun, citizen.

helterskelter• 1 month ago

We got the mpreg emoji instead of a chainsaw, which makes me feel like we need an emoji lobbying group for things like sex, drugs, sawed-off shotguns and jury nullification.

joshmn• 1 month ago

Been waiting for seahorse myself.

ErigmolCt5• 1 month ago

Representation emojis and object emojis are solving different problems

aforty• 1 month 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.

ollien• 1 month 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">

9dev• 1 month 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• 1 month ago

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

pimlottc• 1 month ago

That's a good question. Comparing the Softbank emoji from June 2008 [0] and the initial batch of Apple emoji that shipping in iPhone OS 2.2 (Nov 2008) [1], it doesn't look like there are any missing at all, it's a perfect 1:1 mapping.

0: https://emojipedia.org/softbank/2008

1: https://emojipedia.org/apple/iphone-os-2.2

frollogaston8• 1 month ago

Maybe edit rather than omit? Apple changed the people kissing with actual lip contact, the 1910s-looking cancan dancers, and the stink lines on the poop.

edm0nd• 1 month ago

Its kinda odd how a lot of the major tech companies have self censored emojis like they are some savior of the planet for doing so.

For example the gun emoji by turning it into a water pistol instead of a real looking firearm handgun lol.

WOW THEY SURE CAUSED COUNTLESS LIVES TO BE SAVED W THAT ONE SINGLE MOVE!

pc86• 1 month ago

It's virtue signaling - nonsense from the same people who unironically say things like "lived experience" and "emotional labor." It shows they're part of a particular group, so they're Good, and if you're not, you're Bad.

Cider9986• 1 month ago

Stickers are for you. Plenty of uncensored content and as soon as you send one from one of your packs, the recipient can start using them anywhere as well.

https://signalstickers.org/

AngryData• 1 month ago

It is free PR so corporations lap that kind of thing up.

cryzinger• 1 month ago

I was going to say that the love hotel emoji was the only one I could think of, but in the process of trying to find the emojipedia link (https://emojipedia.org/love-hotel) I found a Reddit thread that leads to a now-defunct blog post:

12 years ago - Apple removes beer, wine, love hotel, and other emojis from insertion palette in Messages app https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/2qqaya/apple_removes...

The blog it links to is dead, so here's an archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20150312182931/http://blog.getem...

dwflanagan• 1 month ago

I just finished Keith Houston's previous book _Empire of the Sum_, a history of calculators, I'll be reading this next.

raincole• 1 month ago

Off topic: Perhaps it's just me, but I have a pet peeve about emojis in anything formal. Even before LLMs, I instinctively took a repo less seriously when README.md had emojis in every section. And now LLMs have popularized that style, it's the first signal for me to vibe-detect AI repos.

I do use emojis. I love them, actually, but only in message apps.

thenthenthen2• 1 month ago

Or SSID’s

geophph• 1 month ago

Not just you!

Affric• 1 month ago

Emoji are fun to use because they make written communication more human… corporations or LLMs using them just comes off as insincere.

ErigmolCt5• 1 month ago

Emoji work well when they feel like a tiny bit of personality leaking through the text

frollogaston8• 1 month ago

I don't like to see them anywhere. They were cool for a while back in version 1.0 when there were a few that everyone knew and used in creative ways, before Apple* decided to make so many that you need a search bar. It's kinda like Pokémon. At this point I only get them in text messages from old people.

* yeah I know technically the Unicode Consortium, but Apple pushed it hard

stouset7• 1 month ago

Emoji (and their predecessor, emoticons) are IMO the greatest new feature for written language that has happened in generations. Eschewing them is certainly a choice you can make, but I personally think it's a poor one.

Authors can now bundle emotional sentiment in text communication. Not being able to do this in the past was usually just an annoyance but could occasionally turn out to be extremely problematic. Countless miscommunications have occurred due to recipients not correctly interpreting an author's tone, and we now have a tool that can help reduce or potentially eliminate those misunderstandings. It's early days, so we're still seeing teething issues: different emoji sets conveying subtly different cues and evolving social norms around their use. But they have incredible potential.

Auracle• 1 month ago

You know, I would actually use little Pokemon sprite emojis, unlike the real thing.

ErigmolCt5• 1 month ago

Emoji themselves aren't the problem. It's more that context changes the meaning completely

zzo38computer• 1 month ago

I do not use emoji and I do not have (and do not want) colourful emoji on my computer (emoji as ordinary text characters would be acceptable for the purpose of displaying texts that have emoji, but I don't really need to that much, even if the texts have them, so I can do without that, too). The reason does not have to do with AI; I think that things can rarely be explained better with emoji, and is usually better to explain by text, and sometimes also diagrams will help (for computer programs, having good documentation is very helpful). (I also don't like Unicode.)

thenthenthen2• 1 month ago

Modifying the Universal: a seminal piece on emoji’s and possibly why/how from a humanities perspective: https://youtu.be/ZP2bQ_4Q7DY?si=TIl4Zhs2X2ZgBJfY

ebbi• 1 month ago

and then through to Steve Jobs for final approval

I miss Steve Jobs

ErigmolCt5• 1 month ago

Cultural impact often comes from boring product work done carefully

An interview with an Apple emoji designer

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