Cossack, mace and borscht in a smartphone. Ukrainian emojis were sent to Silicon Valley for consideration
Digital agency Hexagon Agency created Ukrainian emojis. These are a Cossack, mace, towel, trident, vyshyvanka, borscht and muzzle. The developers sent them to the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee for consideration. Thus, they can appear in smartphones.
The agency called emojis a reaction to sociocultural changes.
‘Imagine meeting someone in chat with a towel or sending a mace to express support for a collective decision.’
Yan Zakharov became the illustrator.
The Hexagon Agency has submitted its emojis for consideration by the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee. This means that they, in particular, may become available for iOS and Android users.
‘These small icons have become more inclusive and present images that are important to many: we saw the rainbow flag, pregnant men, skin of different colors, religious symbols, etc. Understanding the role of war, its impact and reactions to it, we can assume that there is a place for something Ukrainian, in addition to the flag, in the next version of emoji.’
Whether Ukrainian emojis will be approved in Unicode will be known in October 2022.
- Hexagon Agency is a Ukrainian digital agency founded in 2014 that specializes in web development and UX/UI design.
- The Unicode Emoji Subcommittee is a group of enthusiasts and a non-profit organization based in Silicon Valley, which has spent many years collecting emoji ideas from various sources and implementing them on all platforms.
- In 2017, the official Twitter account of Ukraine made a proposal to Apple and Google to add the borscht emoji to the standard package.
