First Look: Google's New Emoji Bonanza

Earlier today the latest batch of emojis, Emoji 15.0, was formally approved by Unicode. Mere hours later, Google unveiled a whole host of new emoji-based features, which included their support for Emoji 15.0.

Keith Broni

• 4 min read
First Look: Google's New Emoji Bonanza

Earlier today the latest batch of emojis, Emoji 15.0, was formally approved by Unicode. Mere hours later, Google unveiled a whole host of new emoji-based features, which included their support for Emoji 15.0 as well as a brand new set of animated emojis which are now viewable on Emojipedia.

Today's feature announcements also come just days after Google revealed a new "Emojify" text feature for Gboard, which is currently available for beta testers.

🆕 New Emoji Support

As part of their new feature announcement earlier today, Google have previewed their support for today's Emoji 15.0 recommendations, including Shaking Face and the plain Pink Heart emoji.

Above: the 31 new emoji designs from Emoji 15.0 in Google's Noto Color Emoji.

The above designs are part of the latest update to Google's Noto Color Emoji font, which is used by Android devices by manufacturers Xiaomi, Oppo, Huawei, and of course Google themselves.

The update is currently available as a color vector font file. According to Jennifer Daniel, Google's Emoji and Expression Creative Director and the current chairperson of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee, these emoji designs will:

all coming to Android soon and will become available across Google products early next year.

The fully updated Noto Color emoji set can be viewed here.

Additionally, Google today have released an updated version of their monochrome Noto Emoji font, which supports all of today's new Emoji 15.0 emojis such as the Donkey, Hyacinth, Folding Hand Fan, and Pink Heart.

Above: the new Donkey, Hyacinth, Folding Hand Fan, and Pink Heart emojis as they appear in both Google's Noto Color Emoji and monochrome Noto Emoji font. Image: Google.

These full set of monochrome Noto Emoji designs, including the new Emoji 15.0 additions, can be viewed on Emojipedia here.

💃 Animated Noto Color Emojis

In addition to detailing their support for the newly-approved Emoji 15.0, today Google also revealed a set of animated emojis designs.

Above: a selection of new animated emoji designs now available within the Messages by Google app. Image: Google.

This animated version of the Noto Color Emoji set includes a selection of 180 different animated emojis from up to 2021's Emoji 14.0 recommendations.

Shown above are the animated incarnations of the following emojis:

You can view all 180 of Google's animated Noto Color Emoji designs on Emojipedia here.

🎨 New Color Font Support

In addition to providing support for Emoji 15.0 within their Noto Color Emoji and Noto Emoji fonts, Google have also demonstrated how the relatively new COLRv1 font format allows for the customize the appearance of color fonts, such as the Noto Color Emoji.

You can play around with manipulating the colors of the 🦆 Duck emoji via this tool, provided that you are using the latest version of Google's Chrome browser.

You can also find out more information about COLRv1 here.

🪄 Emojify Text

As aforementioned, today's announcements come less than a week since a new beta update to Google's Gboard Android keyboard: the ability to fully "emojify" a text-based message once an emoji has been added to it.

Above: adding an emoji to a message makes a new magic wand icon appear, which can be used to insert a variety of relevant emojis to a message with multiple different placement options. Image: Google / Jennifer Daniel.

The feature, which is presently in beta for the Gboard Beta app in English, allows users to toggle through a variety of different "emojifying" options for a text message after a single emoji has been initially added to that message.

This is done through a new magic wand icon, which only appears after an emoji has been added to the text.

The feature is expected to be rolled out to all Gboard English users over the coming weeks.

You can read about the background of this new feature via Jennifer Daniel's latest blog post.

🧑‍🍳 Emoji Kitchen Expansion

Finally, alongside the addition of the new "Emojify" feature, the latest beta update for Gboard introduced support for additional new emojis within Google's Emoji Kitchen feature.

For those not yet aware, the Emoji Kitchen allows Gboard users on Android devices to send merged or elaborated sticker versions of Google’s emoji designs, including some classic Google blob emoji designs.

New additions to the feature as per this latest beta update include 🍁 Maple Leaf, 🍬 Candy, and 🌽 Ear of Corn.

You can view an extensive list of the emojis supported by the Emoji Kitchen here.

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