“At the time, the specs on the devices were really poor, so they weren’t able to display images, for example,” Kurita explains. Pocket Net had weather news, but things like ‘cloudy’ and ...

When Shigetaka Kurita created the first emoji in 1999, he had to work within a grid measuring 12 by 12 pixels. That’s a total of 144 dots, or 18 bytes of data, meaning that the Japanese designer ...

Kurita collected common images including public signs, weather symbols, the zodiac and comic book-style pictures such as a light bulb or a ticking bomb. With simple lines, he made five faces ...

Shigetaka Kurita periodically fields requests that he expand the lexicon of the pictogram-like characters. Ranging from symbols for food items like a "hot dog" to more forthright images such as a ...

When Shigetaka Kurita created the first emoji in 1999, he had to work within a grid measuring 12 by 12 pixels. That’s a total of 144 dots, or 18 bytes of data, meaning that the Japanese designer ...