Emoji: from graphic symbols to Disney characters

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Emojis are pictograms developed at the end of the Nineties by NTT DoCoMo, a japanese communication agency, specifically by Shigetaka Kurita. His idea was to create immediately recognizable symbols, able to visually translate thoughts and emotions and to facilitate electronic communication.

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At that time, Kurita could not imagine the success emojis would have over the years: today thousands of emojis are used in everyday communications all over the world, especially in chats, emails, messages and social networks.

A picture is worth more than a thousand words

The need to express visually an emotion starts with the purpose to better understand the intentions of written messages, which cannot transmit the tone of voice and can be easily misunderstood. Pictures and images, on the other hand, are more direct, and add color to the shared content.

The first emoji forms are emoticons, a term derived by the crasis of the words “emotion” with “icon”. Differently to emojis, though, emoticon are not real pictures, but rather a sequence of graphic punctuations that represent a stylized facial expression, with the purpose to express an emotion on a textual level. Emoticon invention is commonly credited to Scott Fahlman, who in 1982 suggested to a Carnegie Mellon electronic notice-board to use 🙂 or 🙁 to distinguish jokes from serious sentences.

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The inspiration that let to current emojis elaboration, though, owes its graphic elements to a picture created by artist and entrepreneur Harvey Ball to cheer his colleagues up after a company crisis in 1963: we’re talking about the smiley. This symbol, representing a yellow happy face, was so essential and effective that soon became an international icon.

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Emoji usage spread all over countries, so that today emoji are thought as a new type of language: for Oxford Dictionary, in fact, 2015 word of the year was an emoji. What’s more: from first pixelated images, emoji turned into something more specific and diversified, so that users demand more and more new categories and customizations.

Since 2014 there is also an annual emojis celebration, the World Emoji Day on July 17th, a day chosen from the iOS calendar emoji, representing this day. As you can read in the official website, World Emoji Day is a Day dedicated to emojis: “we use them every day, why can’t we celebrate them?”. This day, however, soon evolved into an opportunity to play with for brands, which created original thematic campaigns.

Emoji and Disney, a winner couple

You think about emotions, and you think about Disney. Disney itself, in fact, seized this perfect opportunity still in 2015, when it used World Emoji Day to promote the last movie Inside Out, in which emotions played a central role:

In 2016, also, Disney did not lose its opportunity to distinguish itself with creativity and fantasy, realizing a short video where the Zootropolis story is told with emojis:

But it’s not over yet. Disney Games launched an application, Disney Emoji Blitz, to play with hundreds of Disney and Pixar characters designed as emojis. The game is based on matches, just like Match 3, and allows you to download and collect over 400 Disney-themed emojis: from Mickey Mouse to Frozen, from The Little Mermaid to Toy Story.

Finally, Disney fans will be able to express their feelings and emotions through emojis designed with their favorite characters!

Real Disney and Disney Pixar fans, though, cannot lose the opportunity to collect their favorite movie and cartoon characters designed as a USB Flash Drive: on Tribe e-commerce a large range of inspired-Disney characters USB flash drives are available, so you can have your little Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, or if you prefer Buzz Lightyear and Woody.

I veri fan della Disney e della Disney Pixar non potranno però perdere l’occasione di collezionare i personaggi dei loro film e cartoni preferiti anche in versione chiavetta USB: nel sito di Tribe sono disponibili un’ampia gamma di chiavette USB ispirate nei minimi dettagli a Topolino e Paperino, a Buzz e Woody, e molti altri!

Emotions go on looking for your favorite Disney USB flash drive on Tribe e-commerce!

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