New emoji from Oz consultant to enter 10 billion devices globally
For those who might have missed the memo, July the 17th was World Emoji Day. While perhaps trivial to some, one Australian consultancy had an extra incentive to celebrate this year’s festivities.
Although it won’t be available on devices until next year, Synergy Group’s Erin Collett recently had her own design accepted to the official emoji list, which will be added by the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta among others.
And while it was originally inspired by a newborn, the fresh option should resonate with the consulting set, being that new ‘haggard’ face emoji, complete with baggy red eye-lids and a forlorn expression, represents tiredness and exhaustion.
It’s a small wonder that such an emoji hasn’t existed until now, with the first sets created back in the late 80s in Japan (fun fact: the term emoji is unrelated to the English word emotion) before gaining wider popularity in the 2010s following Unicode standardisation. Nowadays, there are almost 3,800 official emojis to choose from, but just eight new pictograms will be added next year.
A local Canberra designer, Collett joined ThinkPlace as a senior creative in 2018, with the innovation consultancy since coming under the Synergy umbrella at the start of the year. During her time at the firm, Collett has also been closely involved as a co-director, writer and presenter for the unorthodox pitch challenges on the ABC’s long-running marketing & advertising program Gruen.
“Five years and seven score ago, I submitted a rather elaborate proposal to the Unicode committee in the hopes of getting an Eye Bags face into the emoji keyboard,” Collett wrote last month. “Long thought dead and rejected, today I discovered it’s finally being released. Tired parents, hungover party-goers, shift workers, and students rejoice! This is absolutely going on my grave-stone.”
Again, some might deem the triumph trivial, but the new emoji will be available on somewhere in the order of ten billion devices from early next year. Wanna skip the next party invitation? Previously, it would require a long-winded explanation of why you were a bit too tired to boogie, whereas as soon the world will have a single key-stroke with instant in-built empathy.
The human/consulting condition
In approving the new ‘Eye Bags Face’ emoji, the Unicode technical committee cited UN and World Health Organisation data that on average 250 babies are born every minute across the globe, or over 130 million per year (with more, but not quite double that figure in respect to bleary-eyed parents), while one billion of the world’s alcohol consumers tend to get a bit carried away on occasion.
They wrote of the application; ‘The proposed emoji does not closely resemble any existing emoji, as it is the only one that conveys persistent or extreme sleep deprivation rather than light sleepiness, injury, wooziness, or the active state of sleep. Exhaustion, resulting in eye-bags or dark circles, is an integral part of the human experience, and is therefore eternally relevant.”
Collett’s submission is tipped to be the next big thing among next year’s entrants, with the other fresh designs including a fingerprint (which may appeal to Synergy’s forensics team), harp, shovel, and purple splatter – not exactly representative of the everyday human experience, although the shovel has a chance of entering the digital lexicon for all those one billion drunks who fire off late-night text messages when they probably shouldn't.
On her inspiration, Collett previously wrote; “Emerging at 4.30 am from yet another night of baby-inflicted sleep deprivation, I squinted at my phone’s keyboard in search of a fittingly hagged emoji. Where was the face with eye bags? It didn't exist. Then it hit me: I could get my idea on every smartphone, tablet, computer, and major social platform in the world. Cue manic laughter.”
Making its debut next year, the new emoji will appear in around 10 billion devices worldwide.
