In the same way that one can choose different typefaces* in an email and these will subtly change the nature of the communication (Cooper Black, Comic Sans, Palatino, Century Gothic, etc.), you should be able to choose different emoji typefaces to render your smiley face, heart or random vegetable photo-realistically, as an elegant line-drawing, in black-and-white, in 8-bit early-80's graphics, etc.

[* I know the difference between a typeface and a font, but know nothing at all about emojis]
-- hippo, Sep 06 2017

http://www.emigre.com/EF.php?fid=126 John Hersey - Thingbat - note the date [xenzag, Sep 06 2017]

Unicode Emoji list http://www.unicode....ull-emoji-list.html
[zen_tom, Sep 06 2017]

It's baked, unless I've missunderstood the idea. (this can happen) Look up dingbats, then go to a major font provider like Emigre and see what they have. Emojis is just a new name for something that's been around for a while.
-- xenzag, Sep 06 2017


I think this is slightly different (but could be wrong). An emoji should display the same essential picture on every platform (e.g. a smiley face) but could be displayed in a range of different styles - and this is where the different emoji 'typefaces' would come in. Dingbat typefaces are usually multiple sets of different symbols rather than the same symbols (intended to convey the same semantics) drawn in different styles.
-- hippo, Sep 06 2017


I think there should be emoji fonts that consist entirely of whitespace. If this were the default on one's computer, then any incoming emojis would be rendered in the whitespace font.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 06 2017


Unicode has a spec for emojis, and presumably, that's the encoding used (I'm guessing) for sms and other emoji carriers. Since it's possible to create a unicode font for regular characters, Cyrillic, Tamil, Mandarin or Maths, presumably Unicode is just another such block.
-- zen_tom, Sep 06 2017


Also, if we have to have emojis, can we at least have one for Edvard Munch Scream? It's the only one I would regularly have a use for.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 06 2017


That's kind of what I mean. There is a 'scream' emoji. But if there was a 'Famous works of art' emoji typeface then in that the scream emoji would just be Munch's 'Scream'.
-- hippo, Sep 06 2017


Ah, right then. In that case I fully endorse your proposal, as long as (a) it's limited to 'scream' emojis and (b) it's limited to Munch.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 06 2017



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