That’s according to Apple’s first emoji designer, who began crafting Apple’s emoji’s back in 2008. In an essay for the 10th anniversary of when she began her emoji work with Apple as an intern, graphic designer Angela Guzman writes on Medium:
Sometimes our emoji turned out more comical than intended and some have a backstory. For example, [my work partner] Raymond reused his happy poop swirl as the top of the ice cream cone. Now that you know, bet you’ll never forget. No one else who discovered this little detail did either.
Guzman’s essay also notes that as popular as emoji are today, it’s hard to believe people in the West hardly knew what they were when she began designing them for Apple back in 2008:
Soon after my arrival and meeting the team (oh and biking to work!) I was handed my project. I was still trying to make sense of the assignment I’d just received when someone asked if I knew what an emoji was. And well, I didn’t, and at the time, neither did the majority of the English speaking world. I answered “no.” This would all change, of course, as the iPhone would soon popularize them globally by offering an emoji keyboard. Moments later I learned what this Japanese word meant and that I was to draw hundreds of them. Just as I was looking down the hallway and internally processing, “This isn’t type or an exercise in layout, these are luscious illustrations,” I was assigned my mentor.
Guzman’s entire essay is well worth a read for anyone interested in the history of design or the origins of emoji in popular culture.
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