After hearing about the 15 year old girl who submitted the “Hijab Emoji”, the thought of creating and proposing an emoji crossed my mind. I do believe that emojis represent people and culture, and think that there is not enough representation about Arabs or Muslims. For the purposes of the Emoji project, I have decided to pick my hometown, Al Ain, to be the center for my proposed emojis.

While I was brainstorming about ideas, I thought about how to include Al Ain’s culture both in a youth’s perspective as well as the older generation’s one. I have created three emojis that represent the culture of Al Ain which are: 1) Falaj (or Falay in my dialect) 2) Mountain Dew and Sunflower Seeds 3) Dates. My first prototype of these emojis were a bit ugly but gets the point across. Here it is:

This was my first attempt at drawing them. After a few edits here and there, I finally managed to get a decent revised product:

After working on these emojis, I had realized that there is a copyright issue with the mountain dew emoji, so I know this will definitely not do, nonetheless, it was great seeing the reactions of my friends who live in my hometown. I send these to my friend Ahmed, and he recognized all but one of the emojis which was the Falaj one, he thought it was a road or street. He says that they were authentic and that they represent another side of Al Ain other than its beautiful scenery. My other friends also think that they are cute and that they might need more work on it in terms of looking like a real emoji.

I am quite happy about this project (other than the fact that there is copyright). I hope that maybe someday at least, the dates emoji could be true!