{"id":269,"date":"2018-09-24T11:07:06","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T11:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/?p=269"},"modified":"2018-09-24T11:07:08","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T11:07:08","slug":"hand-made-emojis-alena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/2018\/09\/24\/hand-made-emojis-alena\/","title":{"rendered":"Hand-made Emojis – Alena"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As I sat down to create my own emojis I began to look for some guidelines. Having listened to the \u201cPerson in Lotus Position\u201d podcast, I learned that emojis should be distinctive, not too big, not representing any brand, etc. I also looked at emojipedia<\/em> in order to see what kind of emojis already exist so I would not end up repeating someone else\u2019s idea. Then, I started to think about various symbols, objects, and activities that represent my hometown. I looked for inspiration in the old photos archive, creating a list of 15 potential emojis. Afterwards, I tried drawing my first emoji in Paint. It was too painful for me as someone who has zero graphic design skills, so I switched to regular paper and pencils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My first selected emoji\nis a soldier, which is a strong association I have with my hometown, because it\nhas the largest in Belarus air defense base as well as other military objects.\nI was surprised not to find a lot of military-related content in emojipedia, so\nI felt like this emoji would count as original. However, I wasn\u2019t sure if I\nshould make it universal or not, and I ended up drawing a real Belarusian soldier\nwith an exact same cap and a red star in the center that they wear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My second emoji is a birch tree \u2013 a very prominent symbol of my motherland, which has a lot of birch forests and folklore related to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For the third emoji, I tried drawing three different options. First was an orthodox church (because already existing emojis have only other kind of temples), second \u2013 a girl with a flower coronet (an expression of local culture), and the third, which I ended up selecting, was a hair braid (something that girls in Belarus wear a lot).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, I sent my\nemojis to my mum and sister. I said the following: \u201cI\u2019m going to send you three\nemojis that I created myself. They\u2019re just drawings, but imagine that they\u2019re\nreal emojis sent as a message. Tell me, what do you think? What thoughts or\nfeelings they evoke in you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My sister\u2019s response: \u201cThe\nfirst one is Sashka [our brother]\u2026looks confused :D\u201d; \u201cSecond one is Motherland\u201d,\n\u201cThird one is femininity, traditions, Rus\u2019 [the old name for lands currently occupied\nby Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine]\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mum\u2019s response: \u201cFirst\n\u2013 surprise, Second \u2013 smile, hope. Third \u2013 romantic mood, a bit of sadness\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the military emoji made my sister associate it with my brother, who went to the army several years ago, I decided to send him these emojis too in order to hear his opinion. He did not reply \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to make the 1st<\/sup> emoji more universal and remove any association with a particular person, I changed it. I drew a new face, filled with a khaki color, removing the cap with the red star. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I left the 2nd<\/sup> emoji, the birch, as it is. To the 3rd<\/sup> one, the braid, I added a flower and a red ribbon, which are again somewhat symbolic of Belarusian culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I sent the improved emojis to my two hometown best friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend Ilaria texted\nthe following: \u201cThe first one makes me feel disgusted. He is silly and dirty.\nBut at the same time I want to help him. He\u2019s like a savage who has to be\ntaught how to live in our world\u201d. \u201cThe second is very nice, meditative\u201d. \u201cThe\nthird one reminds of the good old days. Maybe everything was not that good in\nthe past, but we always remember it as something nice\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend Anton replied in the following way: \u201cThe first one is sad because he looks like a military man. The second one is very pure and real. The third one is simple and with a soul\u2026So cool to receive hand-made emojis!\u201d. I asked him \u201cdo you see any connection between the three?\u201d. He replied: \u201cIf I look at them all together I\u2019d call them a series of emojis about Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, overall my sister was the closest to understanding the communicated message, as she related the two emojis to the theme of Motherland.\u00a0 Also, my friend Ilaria, associating one of the emojis with the \u201cgood old days\u201d, perceived the message in the right way, as when I was communicating an aspect of life in my hometown I was obviously thinking of the past because I no longer live there. My friend Anton, calling my emojis \u201ca series of emojis about Russia\u201d, was also close to understanding the cultural\/locational reference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I sat down to create my own emojis I began to look for some guidelines. Having listened to the \u201cPerson in Lotus Position\u201d podcast, I learned that emojis should be distinctive, not too big, not representing any brand, etc. I also looked at emojipedia in order to see what kind of emojis already exist …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}