Pop Japan

Emoji, those tiny tiles that convey various meanings, are widely used in social networking sites such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram and twitter. Emoji was invented in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita, an interface designer who works for Dwango Co.Ltd. The word Emoji came from the Japanese that means E 絵 for picture and 文 for write. Shigetaka found inspiration from manga and pictograms.

He made the emoji to speed up communication for the Japanese telecom company NTT DoCoMo. At that time Kurita had to make use of the limited 250 characters to make emojis which is unlike today when emojis can be scaled up to unlimited resolutions. 
Kurita's emoji were adopted by mobile technologies and the internet into what we know as the emoticons from social media sites and messengers.

Emojis convey various emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, rage, grin and smile. They could also represent animals, plants, technology, nature, and household objects.

Tags: emoji, japanese inventions, shigetaka kurita, pictograms, graphics, computer icons, internet slang, internet culture, online chat