We can find some possible answers to those questions in the birthplace of the emoji: Japan. The very first emojis appeared on a handset sold by the company J-Phone (now Softbank) in 1997 ...

Emojis may be one of Japan’s greatest-ever exports. Today they are even officially classified as art. In 2016, New York’s Museum of Modern Art added emojis to its permanent collection – more ...

After all, Japan has dozens and dozens of such emoji – so many of them, that people around the world constantly misuse them. So if today’s world is so globalised and digital… what gives?

The first round of what came to be called emoji—a Japanese neologism that means, more or less, “picture word”—were designed by Kurita, using a pencil and paper, as drawings on a 12-by-12 ...

Japanese telecom giant NTT Docomo Inc. will retire its set of original emoji whose release 26 years ago helped shape the ...

At times, these symbols come with delightful cultural flourishes. One friend from Italy, where the birthday custom includes gently tugging the celebrant’s ears for each year of life, once added an ear ...

The occasion was a welcoming ceremony for Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. Emoji are deeply linked to Japan’s animation and comic-book culture, of course, but what President Obama could not ...

Emojis express a range of emotions in messages on smartphones and other devices the world over. And the tool’s name is of Japanese origin. Shigetaka Kurita, who serves as an executive director ...

Going back to the origins of the sparkle emoji will lead you to Japan in 1999. As evidenced by the Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s previous art installation called “Inbox: The Original Emoji ...

As you can imagine, even those emoticons at the time were incredibly simple compared to the detailed characters we use now — and they weren’t widely popular outside of Japan until 2010 ...

Emojis may be one of Japan’s greatest-ever exports. Today they are even officially classified as art. In 2016, New York’s Museum of Modern Art added emojis to its permanent collection – more ...