Your guess
Where does the word "emoji" come from?
176 little pictures
12 × 12pixelswas the size of each of Shigetaka Kurita's emoji
In 1999 Shigetaka Kurita designed 176 emoji for NTT Docomo's mobile internet service i-mode. His models were symbols from manga – such as the drop of sweat for nervousness – weather pictograms, Chinese characters and street signs.
Not the first after all
Docomo's set was long considered the first. In 2019 a blog post drew attention to an older one from SoftBank, dating from 1997 – which already included the pile of poo. Even earlier ones are known by now: depending on the definition, the oldest known set is that of the Sharp PA-8500 from 1988.
Ready for the museum
In 2016 the Museum of Modern Art in New York added Kurita's 176 emoji to its collection. A year earlier, Oxford Dictionaries had named an emoji its word of the year: the face with tears of joy.
