Microsoft opens more than 1500 of its 3D emoji

At the beginning of this year, after some delay, Microsoft distributed its new 3D emoji and now innovation has been announced. Because the (almost) complete library of these reaction symbols is released as open source via GitHub and Figma.

Microsoft writes in a blog post that emojis are able to break through language barriers, convey nuance or humor, and soften feedback that would otherwise sound harsh: “These indispensable communication tools have become so important that over the past year we have included our entire emoji library as part of our ongoing renewed efforts to make Microsoft 365 a more expressive ecosystem than ever.”

“Colorful palette open-source emoji”

The Redmonders then ask, “But what could be better than a colorful array of refreshed emoji?” The answer: “A colorful array of open-source emoji!” Specifically, this means releasing your entire emoji library on GitHub and the UX/UI software Figma.

Jon Friedman, CVP, Design & Research at Microsoft explains: “An incredible team of designers and developers spent over a year creating our emoji in any format. Just as there are subtitles in different languages, emoji is available in SVG, PNG , and JPG files to be truly versatile, and each of these formats should have a vector, flat, and monochrome versions built for scalability and flexibility.” More than 1500 emojis are available, which can be customized to your liking in the spirit of the open source idea. “Our creative community is endlessly resourceful, and we can’t wait to see you push the boundaries, remix our designs and take the Flowing emoji to places we couldn’t predict,” Friedman writes.

Clippy is missing

Almost all of the emoji are on board from Microsoft, but there are a few exceptions: Clippy in particular is missing, but that’s because it’s trademarked and you can’t (legally) make it open source. For the same reason, the country flags, video games, and technology emoji will also not be available this way.