(1).png)
.png)
The Unicode Emoji Evolution
An interactive visual historical overview of the Unicode emojis evolution and development over the years.
A Digital Humanities project developed in conjunction with the doctoral dissertation titled
"Emojis as Text Technology: Between Visual Paradigm and Cultural Revolution,"
A scholarly supplement in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy, in the Department of Texts and Technology, College of Arts and Humanities, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida.
Major Professor: Dr. Mel Stanfill
© Hanan Hafiz | 2025
What is an Emoji?
An emoji is a small digital image or icon use to express an idea, emotion, concept, etc., in electronic communications. The term is derived from the Japanese language, where e (絵) means “picture” and moji (文字) means “character” or “letter.” Thus, emoji can be understood as “picture character” or “pictorial word.”
🙂.....🧑🏻.....💡.....🥑..... 🥊 .....🚒.....⏰..... 🏁.....
🔍
🔍 Who is Unicode?
Unicode
Standard
Universal character encoding system that assigns a unique number or code to display written texts of the diverse languages including emoji as the only pictograph.
{
⚙️ Emoji Versions
Standard releases that are a subset of Unicode version updates specifically dedicated to the introduction, modification, and enhancement of emoji code and mechanisms.
↤ Swipe ↦
🔲 Emoji Categories and Examples 🔲
🔍 Click for More Info
🔍 Filter by Year or Category
🔳..... Emojis Count 🔳...🔳...🔳........................................
🔍 Swipe and Hover
🔍
🚶🏻♂️➡️ 🏫
🏃
🚒
🧘🏻♀️ 🍲 🍚 🥤.
🪑.📦📦🧎🏻♂️➡️💻 ☕️.
🐈
♨︎
⏰
💧 💧 💧💧
💧 💧 💧
🌻🪻🌹. 🐿️ 🪨🌴
🚴🏾♂️
Emoji Growth ↥ ↧
🔍 Hover & Click
🔲 Emoji V1.0 VS V16.0 🔲
🔍 Hover
🔍 Swipe
🌤️
💸
💸
💸
💸
💸
Corporate Influence on Emoji Standards
💸
💸
2025
🔍
Unicode Members
Scroll
1989-2024
🔍 Scroll
⇡Up
Down ⇣
Emoji Subcommittee (ESC)
A specialized subgroup within the Unicode Technical Committee, tasked with overseeing the development and standardization of emoji characters in the Unicode Standard, including reviewing and evaluating proposals for new emoji, determining the technical specifications for their encoding, and ensuring consistent implementation across platforms, devices, operating systems, and applications.
⚖️ ...... 🔳 ..... 🔲 ........
🔍 Hover
🏢
Emoji Process
🔍 1 🔲... 2... 🔳 3... 🔲 4...
Evaluation
The ESC reviews proposals based on set selection criteria and forwards approved proposals to the Unicode Technical Committee.
Implementation
Approved emojis receive Unicode code points and
vendors create designs and implement the emojis across platforms.
Vendors and Platforms
Apple
Twitter|X
Huawei
Microsoft
OpenMoji
Samsung
🔍 Hover for Example Emojis
🔳 Emoji Platform Comparison 🔳
🔍 Hover for Details
⚫️ Visual Influence ↦ How a platform’s design inspires or shapes others.
⚫️ Standards Compliance ↦ Degree of adherence to Unicode design guidelines.
⚫️ Stylistic Detail ↦ Level of visual complexity and details.
⚫️ Update Frequency ↦ The frequency of the update and adaptation of Unicode standard.
⚫️ Design Evolution ↦ How much the design changed over time.
⚫️ Component Support ↦ How well the platform supports emoji components including: Skin tone modifiers, gender variants, and (ZWJ) sequences for family, professions, and flags.
⚫️ Rendering Consistency ↦ How uniformly emojis are rendered across devices and platforms.
⚫️ Emoji Innovation ↦ Degree to which a platform experiments with new emoji interaction forms, styles, or combinations (e.g., animation, Emoji Kitchen, AR emoji).
⚫️ Open Source Availability ↦ It is open source and availability for public reuse.
Dimensions Key
These are the same emoji !
🔍 Drag & Drop
The Unicode Emoji Evolution
Interactive Visual Historical Overview.
Hanan Hafiz
📑..... 📇.....📊.....🗂.....📰.....
Sources Unicode Website and Emojipedia.
Images and Icon Emojipedia and OpenMoji | PD, CC Attribution,and OFL Licenses.
© 2025
⚠️ Disclaimer:
All company logos and trademarks used in this visualizations are the property of their respective owners. Their inclusion is solely for informational, educational, and comparative purposes under the principles of fair use. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of the mentioned companies. The use of these logos does not imply any marketing intent or commercial benefit.