In 2020, I submitted two emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium. This work, or action, fits in my attempts to find some (artistic) agency in the current state of corporate domination of the internet and consumer technologies. Other projects include my Giphy artist’s account (read more about that here), contributing (occasionally) to Wikipedia, and perhaps also this very blog. This post explains the how and why of two emoji proposals I submitted in the Summer of 2020. Spoiler alert: both were declined.
Anyone can submit an idea for a new emoji to Unicode, the organization responsible for the standardization of digital code, including symbols. Each year, Unicode adds a selection of emoji, based on incoming proposals or community input. The entire process can take up to a year from submission to implementation. Because most devices and apps use their own design sets for emoji, a proposal is more a conceptual motivation than a design challenge.
A proposal needs to define the emoji’s purpose and its possible use-cases. Over the years, the emoji vocabulary has expanded to included different skin tones and cultural particularities from all over the world. However, the set is not unlimited – too many emoji will make it difficult to fine the right ones, and the images should not take up too much space on a device: they’re meant to be lightweight and versatile.
The proposals I submitted were both based on conceptual merit rather than projected use. The ‘stone tool’ emoji proposal tried to make a case about its inclusion in either the ‘tools’ selection (with ‘hammer’, ‘pliers’, and so forth) or the ‘technology’ selection (next to ‘computer mouse’). Stone tools are the original tool, so to me, it would only make sense to include it – even only as an hommage.
Unfortunately, it was declined because the first Unicode selection committee did not think there was enough demand for it. Perhaps not, although I do occasionally receive messages of archaeologists or palaeontologists who are deliberately looking for a ‘stone tool’ emoji, and bump into my website while searching for it.
The second proposal, ‘hand stencil’, should have been accepted by Unicode as it is a reminder of one of the oldest and most widespread (‘viral’!) pictogram – a direct emoji ancestor: the Palaeolithic hand prints that are found all across the inhabited world. Hand stencils (and/or prints) are everywhere where people went: from Lascaux in France, to Leang Timpuseng in Indonesia, and Cueva de las Manos (pictured below) in Argentina.
The Stone Tool and Hand Stencil proposals were deemed to be used not frequently enough for implementation, although I argued their conceptual merits would outweigh those, since especially the prehistoric cave art of hand stencils are the first examples of pictograms.
Find the proposals and the Unicode responses here.