I had the incredible opportunity to work alongside Studio Tendril on the next generation of emojis for Microsoft. From the project’s inception, I played a role in the exploration of 3D design and animation direction for the emojis, and I was also an integral part of team responsible for bringing the emoji system to life.
My responsibilities encompassed the design and creation of over 400 emojis, spanning from delicious food emojis to expressive smileys and diverse human characters. My involvement in this project enabled me to showcase multi-disciplinary design skills while contributing to an innovative and captivating aspect of the digital world.
‘As the world moves toward hybrid work scenarios that blend in-person with remote, expressive forms of digital communication are more important than ever’ – Microsoft Design
Inclusivity, honesty and vulnerability are all elements we sought out to encompass in our new Emojis. We wanted our designs to celebrate the beautiful differences and imperfections in human expressions. Which is why our Emoji silhouettes aren’t 100% geometrically circular, but instead what we came to call the ‘imperfect circle.’
Every creative decision had to be scalable and flexible enough to convey the message behind each Emoji. To achieve this, we started with 2D illustrations using simple base shapes as a construction logic for all our Emojis before diving into 3D. Creating a design system that maintained consistency across the entire Emoji family.
Credits
| Client Microsoft Microsoft Team Production Company Creative Director Director Art Director 3D Art Director Executive Producer |
Producer Emily McCallen, Brittany Sheahan Coordinator CG Supervisor Design Lead Modeller Model, Light, Render Rigging Lead Animators Animation Compositor |
Emoji FilmCreative Director Executive Producer Director Producer Design Modelling Animators Lighting and Render Compositors Sound |