use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , body_discovered = , resting_place = , resting_place_coordinates = , burial_place = , burial_coordinates = , monuments = , nationality = Japanese , other_names = , siglum = , citizenship = , education = , alma_mater = , occupation = , years_active = , era = , employer = , organization = , agent = , known_for =

Emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis; , ) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from type ...

designer , notable_works = NTT DoCoMo emoji set , style = , net_worth = , height = , television = , title = , term = , predecessor = , successor = , party = , movement = , opponents = , boards = , criminal_charges = , criminal_penalty = , criminal_status = , spouse = , partner = , children = , parents = , mother = , father = , relatives = , family = , callsign = , awards = , website = , module = , module2 = , module3 = , module4 = , module5 = , module6 = , signature = , signature_size = , signature_alt = , footnotes = is a Japanese interface designer often cited for his early work with

emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis; , ) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from type ...

sets. Many refer to him as the creator of the emoji, a claim that has been clarified in recent years. He was part of the team that created one of the first emojis used solely for communication, a heart-shaped pictogram that appeared on an NTT DoCoMo

pager A pager, also known as a beeper or bleeper, is a Wireless communication, wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays Alphanumericals, alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response p ...

aimed at teenagers. It went on to become the Red Heart emoji. This development and the aftermath of its use led Kurita to design a set of 176 colored emojis. Many of the general-use emojis used today by

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

can be traced back to Kurita's set. He now works for Dwango Co. Ltd., a Japanese game company owned by Kadokawa Dwango Corporation. The NTT DoCoMo emoji set he created is in the collection of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

(MoMA) in New York City.

Creation of emoji sets

While emojis existed prior to the 1990s, they were often defined as

pictograms A pictogram (also pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto) is a graphical symbol that conveys meaning through its visual resemblance to a physical object. Pictograms are used in systems of writing and visual communication. A pictography is a wri ...

in Asia. The term emoji is of Japanese origin, with the term only adopted in the west from 2010 onwards. Japan itself also struggled to define the emoji for a number of years. It wasn't until telecom companies began experimenting with the use of graphic images or pictograms in messaging facilities that the emoji concept became a working idea. One of the first telecoms companies that trialed the concept of using pictograms in messaging facilities was NTT DoCoMo. In the 1990s, NTT DoCoMo released a

that was aimed at teenagers. The pager was the first of its kind to include the option to send a pictogram as part of the text. The pager only had a single heart-shape pictogram as its option. This is thought to be Kurita's first exposure to the use of digital symbols in text form. The pager received rave reviews in Asia which led to other companies in the region to consider using pictograms in the list of text characters. NTT DoCoMo then released another pager aimed at businesspeople, but this time dropped the heart pictogram from the characters on the pager. Following its release, there was an outcry by users that the pictogram was no longer available and many customers switched to other providers that had now included a heart pictogram in their markup. This led NTT DoCoMo to reverse their decision and include the heart pictogram. In interviews, Kurita said this experience left him and others at NTT DoCoMo knowing that symbols had to be part of future texting services. For NTT DoCoMo's upcoming mobile system

i-mode i-mode (, ) is a Japanese mobile internet (distinct from wireless internet) service operated by NTT DoCoMo. Unlike Wireless Application Protocols, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail, and ...

, it was decided that Kurita should design a set of pictograms, which could be used as characters on the new operating system.

NTT DoCoMo emoji set

Kurita started designing an emoji set that could be used alongside the NTT DoCoMo heart emoji. He designed a set of 176 pictograms using a grid of 12x12 pixels that eventually started a global trend in the use of pictograms to communicate ideas through text messages. The set of pictograms became known as the first emoji set, as it is the first time the word had been recorded is thought to be used for pictograms. Emoji simply means "pictograph" or "icon" in Japanese. To make the emoji set, Kurita got inspiration from Japanese

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

where characters are often drawn with symbolic representations called ''manpu'' (such as a water drop on a face representing nervousness or confusion), as well as from weather pictograms,

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

and street signs. One of the most notable changes to other telecom companies that had started experimenting with emojis was the use and diversity of color in the set. Aside from basic numbers and shapes, the majority of the 176 emoji set contained color. The famous DTT DoCoMo heart remained as part of the set and was red. General-use emojis, such as sports, actions and weather, can easily be traced back to Kurita's emoji set. The yellow-faced emojis commonly used today evolved from other emoticon sets and cannot be traced back to Kurita's work. In 2016, the original set of 176 emojis was added to the collection of the

and was exhibited in the exhibition ''Inbox: The Original Emoji, by Shigetaka Kurita''. Kurita's designs are held in the collection of the M+ museum in Hong Kong, and were included in the 2018 exhibition ''Being Modern: MoMA in Paris'' at the Fondation Louis Vuitton''.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurita, Shigetaka Interface designers Japanese artists Japanese inventors 1972 births People from Gifu Prefecture Living people Creators of writing systems