It's popular because 1) it's cheap and easy to produce since it doesn't take much talent 2) it's easily vectorized and resizable 3) its color pallet and disproportionate human forms makes it feel universal.
Google copied Facebook, then a bunch of companies copied Google. And now finally Apple is onboard too. It's not a good look for Apple, which usually tries to create design trends, not follow them.
> its color pallet and disproportionate human forms makes it feel universal
So we went from having Homer Simpson universal-color emojis, to a pallet of specific-color emojis, to be more inclusive. And then switched from stock photos of diverse people, to Homer Simpson cartoons, to be more universal.
We're just making this all up from year to year, aren't we?
Not exactly – the "Homer Simpson" yellow emoji came after the initial (Apple) emoji font, which just had all the humans looking white, with no other options.
This is false. The first emojis were Japanese in origin and were the first to use yellow faces. Apple copied the existing style from the Japanese illustrations.
This is untrue. Not that any of them look like Simpsons characters, but the only emoji option on iOS for like five years was the yellow-shaded cartoon face. It's still the default skin tone in most emoji sets.
It's popular because 1) it's cheap and easy to produce since it doesn't take much talent 2) it's easily vectorized and resizable 3) its color pallet and disproportionate human forms makes it feel universal.
Google copied Facebook, then a bunch of companies copied Google. And now finally Apple is onboard too. It's not a good look for Apple, which usually tries to create design trends, not follow them.
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