Emoji — There's more than meets the 👁️

A lot more goes into selecting and designing an emoji than you might expect. For some in-depth glimpses into the factors designers weigh when expanding the set of emoji characters, check out these videos on our Unicode Consortium YouTube channel:

When a Merperson is a Merman: Using Gender-Inclusive Design for Codepoints Which Don't Specify Gender

Race is Not a Skin Tone. Gender is Not a Haircut.

Hanmoji: Analyzing Chinese Radicals to Determine Semantic Gaps in Emoji

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Over 140,000 characters are available for adoption to help the Unicode Consortium’s work on digitally disadvantaged languages

Call for Unicode 9.0 Cover Design Art

The Unicode Consortium is inviting artists and designers to submit cover design proposals for Version 9.0 of The Unicode Standard. This is the first time Unicode is extending this invitation.

The cover design would appear on the Unicode Standard 9.0 web page, in the print-on-demand publication, and in associated promotional literature on the Unicode website. The chosen artist will receive full credit in the colophon of the publication, and wherever else the design appears, and receive $700. The two runner-up artists will receive $150 apiece.

Everyone in the world uses Unicode every time they read or type any character on any laptop, tablet, or smart phone. This is the opportunity to be on the cover of the standard for those characters.

Please see the announcement web page for requirements and more details.