Exploring Google's New Black-and-Blobby Emoji Font
Last week Google launched a brand new emoji-focused font: Noto Emoji. Monochrome and minimalist, the font renders emojis as simply as possible and also introduces a series of new blob-inspired designs.
Last week Google launched a brand new emoji-focused font: Noto Emoji. Monochrome and minimalist, the font renders emojis as simply as possible and also introduces a series of new blob-inspired designs. The entire set is now viewable on Emojipedia.
While announcing the launch of Noto Emoji font, Google's Jennifer Daniel (the current chairperson of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee) explained the rationale behind the creation of the minimalist font:
Over time, emoji have become more detailed. Instead of representing broad concepts there has been a trend to design emoji to be hyper realistic.
By removing as much detail as possible, emoji could be more flexible, representing the idea of something instead of specifically what is in front of you.
It was also explained that this font can be modified in the same way as all standard fonts:
Noto Emoji works like any other font you might use: You can change any character's color, size and weight.
Those familiar with Google's emoji set will have recognized that many of Noto Emoji's designs are derived from the latest version of that emoji set, which is used across Google platforms and Android devices.
However, when presented with attempting to represent people emojis with different skin tones and gender presentations, the team came to a blob-based conclusion:
It simply didnโt look right to replace color with hash marks or polka dots. And that my dear is how the blobs came back.
Instead of attempting to represent people emojis across three different gender presentations, each with five skin tone modifier options, each of these emojis have been given the exact same gender-neutral monochromatic design: either as blobs or as humanoid silhouettes.
Many of these designs are directly drawn from Android 6.0.1's emoji set, which was the last major emoji update to feature blob people emojis before they were updated in Android 7.0, enable them to support gender ZWJ sequences.
Examples of the blobs include ๐ Person Getting Haircut, ๐ฎ Police Officer, and๐ Woman Dancing (simply called "Dancer" at the time), while examples of the silhouettes are โน๏ธ Person Bouncing Ball, ๐คน Person Juggling, and ๐คธ Person Cartwheeling.
Soon after the introduction of skin tone and gender-specifying sequences, the Google emoji set was completed redesigned in 2017's Android 8.0, removing the blob designs from even the smileys.
This is not the first time the blobs have experienced a revival outside of Google's mainline emoji designs.
In 2021 Google's Gboard Emoji Kitchen feature, which allows Android users to send merged or elaborated sticker versions of Googleโs emoji designs, revived the blobs as options amongst its support emoji set.
However, the Emoji Kitchen has yet to provide support to any flag, gesture, or person emoji. Therefore the Noto Emoji font provides certain person emojis with blob-based representation for the very first time, including ๐ง Person: Beard, ๐ง Older Person, ๐ง Woman with Headscarf, ๐ง Person in Steamy Room.
Many of these are fantasy creatures, such as ๐ง Zombie, ๐ง Fairy, ๐ง Elf, ๐ง Vampire from 2017's Emoji 5.0, and the ๐ง Troll emoji from late 2021's Emoji 14.0 recommendations.
In fact, all of the brand new Emoji 14.0 recommendations are featured in the Noto Emoji set, including smileys such as ๐ซ Melting Face and ๐ฅน Face Holding Back Tears alongside the likes of ๐ซถ Heart Hands, ๐ซฆ Biting Lip, and ๐ Playground Slide.
As with many other gender-specifying emojis, Emoji 14.0's ๐ซ Pregnant Person and ๐ซ Pregnant Man emojis both share the same design as Emoji 3.0's ๐คฐ Pregnant Woman, while the
In providing support for Emoji 14.0, Noto Emoji supports all 3,633 emoji designs recommended by Unicode thus far, albeit with considerable design duplication across skin tone modifier and gender-specifying ZWJ sequences like those highlighted above.
One additional aspect of the Noto Emoji worth exploring is how its designers opted to represent the different geographic flag emojis. Quoting Google's Jennifer Daniel once more:
You can't simply convert flags into black and white. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Finland and Sweden. We could redraw the flags but that puts them at risk of being incorrect. Instead, we leveraged the ISO's country codes.
Therefore all country flags lay bear their two-letter ISO codes within a curved flag outline.
While this may appear odd for many emoji users, it will be familiar to those on Microsoft devices. Microsoft has never supported emoji designs for flag emoji sequences, instead simply displaying their component two-letter (e.g. ๐บ Regional Indicator Symbol Letter U and ๐ธ Regional Indicator Symbol Letter S for the ๐บ๐ธ Flag: United States).
Meanwhile, for the three flag tag sequences that are recommended for general interchange (RGI) by Unicode, letter codes appear to have been editorially selected by the font's designers.
These are "GB" for ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ England (seemingly derived from "Great Britain"), "SCT" for ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ Scotland, and "CYM" for ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ท๓ ฌ๓ ณ๓ ฟ Wales (taken from the country's Welsh language name, Cymru).
The choice of "GB" was quizzed by one Twitter user, given that Great Britain refers to the landmass that contains England, Scotland, and Wales.
England flag emoji is weird. It's GB!??
— Joan Montanรฉ ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ๐น (@unjoanqualsevol) May 4, 2022
IMHO it would have to be ENG, just like Scotland is SCT and Wales is CYM pic.twitter.com/ZJyZ3ijpZE
Meanwhile, another user joked around using variable weights with the ๐ฒ๐ช Flag: Montenegro flag:
who's excited to use the montenegrin flag in the noto emoji font pic.twitter.com/I3Wz17RUDj
— ฮผแตAโฮผ (@satejsoman) May 3, 2022
๐ถ Release
The Noto Emoji font is available now on Google Fonts.
It is free to download and is licensed under the Open Font License, meaning it can be used freely in products & projects - print or digital, commercial or otherwise.