Category Archives: featured

Noto emoji, a new black and white emoji font with less color, may gain us more in the long run

Posted by Jennifer Daniel, Creative Director – Emoji & Expression

 

In 1999 — back when Snake 🐍 was the best thing about your phone 📱 — there were three phone carriers in Japan 🗾 . On these phones were tiny, beautiful pictures called emoji (meaning “picture” and “character” in Japanese 🥰). These 176 images were very simple — think 8-bit tech — and as a result were exquisitely abstract and tremendously useful when texting ✨ Twenty years later 👶🕛🕐🕑🕒🕓🕔🕕🕖🕗🕘🕙🕚🧓, emoji are a global phenomenon 🌎. Now, our phones have fancy retina screens and somewhere along the way an important part of what made emoji so handy was left by the wayside: their simplicity. That’s why we’ve created a new emoji font: a monochrome Noto Emoji (a black and white companion to Noto Emoji Color).

Noto Emoji works like any other font you might use: You can change any character’s color, size and weight. Download it and give it a whirl.

What’s old is new again 🔙

Over time, emoji have become more detailed. Instead of representing broad concepts there has been a trend to design emoji to be hyper realistic. This wouldn’t be a problem except skeuomorphism’s specificity has resulted in the exclusion of other similar concepts in your keyboard. Today we have “💃” … but what about other types of dance? Hula dancing? Belly dancing? Salsa dancing? Boogie woogie? By removing as much detail as possible, emoji could be more flexible, representing the idea of something instead of specifically what is in front of you (that … is what your camera is for 😂).

 

We also want to make sure emoji keep up with platform technology. We’ve got dark mode … we’ve got light mode … and now you can change the color of your emoji font so it can operate with the same dynamism as your operating system. Noto Emoji is also a variable font — opt for a “light” grade if it appears small 💪 or “bold” if you want them to have some weight. 💪 .

 

New designs, fewer details

To design something simple seems like it would be … well, simple … but it’s deceptively complex 😅

At first the approach seemed obvious — simply redraw the Noto Emoji Color designs in black and white. They are iconic, they will be legible. Done deal. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Not so fast. The removal of color is no trivial task. Take for example: Flags.

You can’t simply convert flags into black and white. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Finland and Sweden. You could redraw the flags but that puts them at risk of being incorrect. Instead, we leveraged the ISO’s country codes. These sequences of letters are unique and represent each country. As a result, black and white flags have a much more contemporary aesthetic — kind of like bumper stickers 😜.

Let’s also take a look at the process involved to redesign the people emoji. For some characters, color is baked into the concept (like skin tone or hair color). It simply didn’t look right to replace color with hash marks or polka dots. And that my dear is how the blobs came back. Say hello (again) to our little friends.

Likable. Nostalgic. Relatable without maintaining a distinction between genders. Google’s blob emoji were really something special. Cute, squishy, and remarkably friendly. We were able to bring back a little bit of what made them special while simultaneously discarding the parts that weren’t working. Most notably, the blobs’ facial expressions were wildly inconsistent but that was very easily fixed in black and white mode. It’s important emoji work cross-platform. The real world is not black and white but in emoji land we can finally have our favorite little dancer back 💃.

So here we are today, dancing into the future with our favorite new emoji font. We can’t wait to see how you use it. Visit Google Fonts to download or embed onto your website. Happy emoji-ing! 🐒🐒🎉🐬

Posted by The Google Developers Team

 

For Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating a few of our Google Developer Experts. Meet Zarah Dominguez, Android GDE. If you identify as a woman or non-binary and are interested in joining this community please complete this form.

Zarah Dominguez started Android development in 2009 and hasn’t looked back. “When I first discovered Android, I thought it was super cool seeing what I have coded come to life on a device within just a few clicks,” she says.

Learning Android on her own, Zarah began documenting what she learned, to remember it herself and to help others. “Sometimes, I’d see answers on StackOverflow that said, ‘It’s simple,’ or ‘It’s straightforward,’ but it wasn’t simple or straightforward for me, so I kept on writing, and more people, all over the world, started reading my posts. I was very surprised when I met another Android dev at Google I/O, and she told me that one of my posts helped her get unstuck. Being able to help even one person is a reward in itself, and hearing that from a fellow developer made me happy.”

Zarah got involved in the local Android community by speaking at conferences and organizing meetups, and a community manager nominated her to apply for the GDE program. She has run monthly Android meetups in Sydney and organized DevFests, and she speaks at community events and conferences in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand.

Android development is exciting and challenging because of the dynamic nature of the technology, Zarah says, with new features being released frequently and a vibrant developer community engaged with the platform. “The community around Android development is amazing–everyone is generous with their time and knowledge, which helps me improve my apps’ stability and performance,” she says. “The guidance and tools the Android team provides help me make better choices as a developer, influencing how I approach problems and propose solutions.”

Zarah says Android broadens the reach of any project. “I am very lucky to get a new device every so often, but not everyone has that privilege, and a huge chunk of our user base may have phones that are a few years old or without a lot of processing power,” she says. “That’s part of the beauty of Android! A wide range of devices fit all sorts of budgets. The more devices we support, the more people we reach; the more people we reach, the more people we can help.”

Helping others is Zarah’s priority, as she believes accessibility should be first and foremost in the minds of app developers. “Technology, when used properly, has a huge potential of improving the lives of so many people,” she says. “I like building apps that have a positive social impact. From apps that help phlebotomists and nurses record and organize blood samples, to real estate apps that help people find their perfect home, to supermarket apps that help Australians get their weekly shop sorted, Android has allowed me to reach thousands of people and make their day-to-day tasks a little bit easier.”

She encourages other women developers to be confident and join the community. “@AndroidFeminati on Twitter is a good place to start,” she says. “It’s an inclusive and supportive group of women in Android. It’s also good to seek out local meetups like Women Who Code or Girl Geek Dinners to meet other women in tech in your local area. There’s nothing like having a group of strong women who are behind you no matter what and will support you 100%.”

She advises taking mistakes in stride and staying upbeat. “You will learn from it, and you will be better for it,” she says. “Perhaps most important of all is to always remember that you are capable, you are strong, you are extraordinary, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise!”

Learn more about Zarah’s journey by watching her Android Developer Story: https://youtu.be/ZKbuqDbk-0c

Follow Zarah on Twitter at @zarahjutz | Learn more about Zarah on LinkedIn.

The Google Developers Experts program is a global network of highly experienced technology experts, influencers, and thought leaders who actively support developers, companies, and tech communities by speaking at events and publishing content.

The program team is currently looking for interested candidates that identify as women or non-binary to join the global community. If you would like to be considered for the Experts program please complete this form.