If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how much could you say with up to 800 emoji icons? Emojis (or emojicons) are pint-sized pixel pictures that allow mobile phone and computer users to condense common emotions into single, simple images.

A straightforward smiley or a silly sad face surely can’t be complicated, but there’s a story behind the infamous emoji images and there aren’t enough icons to explain it. Here is the history of the emoji de-Unicod(ed):

High Tech Tokyo

Image via Flickr by Fcb

The earliest emojis originated in Japan around 1995. The crude characters weren’t yet called emojis, rather they were ASCII art or kaomoji. Kaomoji were simple symbols arranged to create emotional expressions. Shigetaka Kurita, a Japanese developer, thought they could be better expressed, so he invented a version of the characters that included complex details on a 12 x 12 pixel canvas.

Thus, Kurita became the father of the modern emoji. He created the first 176 character set of coloured emoticons. His original emojis were originally released on limited platforms.

Insert Willem Van Lancker Here

Willem Van Lancker made the first, commercially communicated version of emojis. Van Lancker, an intern at the time, was responsible for 400 of the 500 emoji character set, which has since become the most popular set of all time. The set includes everything from pizza to people.

Unfortunately, for those seeking alternative expression, when emojis were developed for commercial use, they were available on limited platforms. This meant that early text messages were about as boring as cave drawings. Many devices were only capable of creating outdated ASCII art at best.

Emoji for the Masses

As more and more operating systems and devices continue to emerge, emoji is now available on a variety of platforms, including the latest version of BlackBerry 10. Thousands of users all over the world can now text message emoji monkeys when their friends say something foolish.

Comical Communications

Image via Flickr by Yodelanecdotal

Speaking of foolish things, emojis have spawned an entire culture of comical communications. Sites like emojitales.com sprung up around the texting trend of telling entire tales with emojis alone.

One emoji enthusiast even took it upon himself to translate the classic novel Moby Dick into pictograms using the infamous icons. According to Time Magazine, the translation was later accepted by the Library of Congress!

An Emotional Future

Technology has certainly made society more lazy. The trends are all too clear. Turn-by-turn directions and digital maps have replaced remembering a route. Your family members tend to text more than they call and baby pictures rarely come with captions.

The future of emoji is uncertain in its form, but it’s sure to remain embedded in modern technology. In a world where a simple smiley face can replace a 20-word sentence and multitasking is king, the icon will always win.

The next time you send a text message, why not share a little smile? Surely, there’s an icon for that. What are some other unique modes of expression that technology has enabled in the last 20 years? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Sources:

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/emoji-2023-12/

http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/4/3966140/how-emoji-conquered-the-world

http://crackberry.com/blackberry-102-bringing-standard-unicode-emoji-support-return-level-1-notifications-and-more

http://crackberry.com/blackberry-102-bringing-standard-unicode-emoji-support-return-level-1-notifications-and-more

How to create a high ranking web page

Whether you’re designing a personal site or a business page, you have to come up with a brilliant design plan. This includes researching for the right colors to blend, design approach to use and content information to publish on the page.

So far, there are over 2.4 billion internet users, according to internetworldstats.com’s latest data. If you are looking at targeting a huge portion of these viewers, try the following tips we’ll list down below to ensure that your website will have a lasting impression online.

Continue reading →

In the present scenario of internet technology, the World Wide Web is crowded with billions of websites that are sporting special design which either look real messy or look really attractive on the viewer’s opinion and perspectives. If you are really planning to create a web and getting your personal or official site successfully published then you should perfectly know certain basic web design tips tutorials which will largely assist you while designing a perfect website from any kind of scratch.

Top online tutorials for web designers is the right place to learn regarding the world of web designing by the web designers from the basic level to the latest advanced level. The easy to understand tutorial materials come in simple language. Most of the web designing procedures is well-explained in step by step pattern for the common men.

Continue reading →

As people, we tend to collect memories of our lives. We may do this by scrawling in a journal every day or by taking photos from everywhere we go. It doesn’t matter how we do it, but we do want to keep our memories close to our hearts. After we have taken all of the pictures, we catalog them on a digital service. Digital services are the modern photo album. Most people place all of their photo albums online to share with family and friends. Our world is fast and on the go, so you are going to need to keep up.

What about people who want to catalog their photos in physical albums? Some people are a bit old fashioned with post cards and so on; therefore, you may enjoy having physical copies of your precious memories.

Continue reading →

With the rapid development in the market scenario, every aspect of business has been turned online. Conventional Paper printing has taken a backseat in the rapid acceleration of business environment.

What is online printing?

By using the online printing platform, the user can submit jobs in the web based platform and print the software solution associated to it. The electronic files can be submitted for print production in case of online printing. The best part about online printing is that the user is able to customize his documents according to the need and requirements of the company. Online printing enables the professional to pay the amount for printing online. This is the most incredible feature present within online printing.

Continue reading →

Programmers are often intimidated by design but a little try can give a better ROI. There are tips that can make your website look more professional and accessible. I am writing these points after implementing it on at least 10 websites. Off-course, I am not a designer so can’t give you the real stream but being a programmer, I don’t mind fonts. It just needs to look beautiful.

I want to make sites look attractive and beautiful. It is partly due to vanity and partly due to realism. Vanity is because, it’s my inner desire that people praise my work and realism just because there is common thought that a website cannot be credible unless it is not design attractively. Designs consist of knotty rules nowhere written and boosted by un learnable sense of taste. But with time I came to know that with little designing sense and some dedicated effort a project can look vaguely attractive.

Continue reading →

The web designing field involves lots of innovativeness. Quite frequently we find new concepts generating in this avenue. It is essential to apply these new concepts or else your website would lose track and lag behind in the competitive race.

The top 7 web design tools you can go for in 2013 are :

1. Basecamp

This online project management system permits you for collaborating to your colleagues, assigning tasks and tracking progress with much ease. This system gives discussion areas, to do lists, shared calendar and asset repository. The part of suite for applications provided by 37Signals including Backpack, Campfire and Highrise that together give a full suite for management tools.

2. HTML5 Boilerplate

It gives a basic kind of structural framework to which the HTML5 webapp or website is deployed. This system is compatible to all popular browsers. It allows the usage of newer HTML5 tags.

3. ReCaptcha

This free service helps to avoid spam through presenting a pair of words being scanned from newspapers, radio show scripts and books which are digitized. This system works via matching the known words to the unknown words. This allows the users to prove that these are not the spam bots. The Google sponsored digitizing project helps to attain the free translation at same time.

4. Adobe AIR

This makes you deploy the native applications onto different operating systems while making use of the standard kind of web development tools like JavaScript, Flash, HTML and CSS. Apps are compiled to the AIR format. Then it is directly installed onto host operating system through the web. This makes it perfect to develop the desktop widgets.

5. DropBox

This free service makes you store files over the web within the cloud as well as synchronize them automatically between your different devices and computers. It works onto Android, iPad as well as iPhone, and desktop computer. It supports collaboration via sharing of folders to your contacts.

6. Evernote

This makes you create the virtual scrapbook for text, audio, photos and webpages which you come across during browsing. You can access them onto any of your devices like desktop computer, tablet and phone. The database makes you create tags and keywords to quickly search and categorize the items within your notebook. It even makes use of OCR for digitizing text in images and photos.

7. CSS3 Generator

This tool creates code for loads of CSS3 features.

You can try these web designing tools to make your website more impressive and appealing.

Author Bio: Leona is in content writer profession since three years. He focuses to write articles on web designing and development topics. You can order PSD to HTML service to get delightful results from your website.

Despite all of the advances in technology throughout the past several decades, coloring remains one of the most popular and beloved activities for children.

In fact, technology has actually helped to enhance the coloring experience. By using your computer, you can create customized coloring templates for your children’s artwork. With high quality ink and a little imagination, you can provide your children with their own personalized coloring pages in just minutes. And through scanning, color ink, and reliable printing paper, you can preserve your kid’s art for a lifetime. Here’s a look at several great options for customizing your children’s coloring page templates and printing them.

Make Your Own

There are a number of great web sources like Crayola that allow kids and their parents to build their own coloring pages. You’ll start by selecting the background of your choice. From there, you’ll be able to select various animals, people, plants, or objects that you would like to incorporate into the foreground. You can even add in customized words. If you’d prefer, you can build your own cartoon character by selecting from a number of eye, nose, hair, and mouth types. 

Another fun option is to make your own coloring template by using personal photos. For example, you could upload a photo of your child and his or her best friend to your computer. Utilizing a basic photo editing software, you can transform the photo into a “sketch” format which will outline the photo’s features in black and leave the rest white for coloring.

Once you’re done with your creation, you can print them out using high quality HP printer ink so that your kids can see the outlines well enough to fill them in with the colors of their choice.

Name Personalization

You may also choose to visit coloring sites like Frecklebox.com which will enable you to incorporate your child’s name into a coloring page. All you have to do is browse through the provided free templates that are compatible with name customization, type in your kid’s name, and print.

Color Online

If you’ve got a picky kid who can’t stand the idea of going out of the lines, they might enjoy coloring pages online. Sites like Thecolor.com offer a wide variety of coloring pages that can be filled (perfectly) with nearly 100 colors to choose from. When your child is done with their creation, they have the option of sharing it with relatives via e-mail, or printing the pages.

Preservation

Of course, you want to keep your kid’s artwork looking great forever. One smart way to do this is by scanning the completed coloring into your computer and printing it onto high quality photo paper. You can also laminate it. Whether you’d like a glossy or matte finish, you’ll be able to enjoy your child’s creativity for years when you select the best paper and HP printer ink. You may even consider framing it for the world to see.

Author Bio

Lanroni is a good freelance blogger and guest blogger, he makes his move around and publishes posts and useful information around for readers of different blogs to read and gain from.