August 11, according to the Verge, Microsoft today announced that it is open-sourcing its more than 1,500 3D Emoji, allowing creators to use the material for free. Microsoft hopes this move will encourage more creativity and inclusiveness in the Emoji field.
Microsoft released the Microsoft Emoji library in Windows 11 last year and released a 3D version in Microsoft Teams in February, but Microsoft didn’t initially intend to open source it.
In an interview with The Verge, Jon Friedman, Microsoft’s vice president of design and research, said, “At the beginning of the project, we were focused on designing Microsoft Emoji, but as the project progressed, we came up with the idea of open source. This is consistent with our belief and view that the more we open source, the better the products we can build and the more we can offer to all of humanity.”
When building the Microsoft Emoji library, the Microsoft team spent a lot of time making it more inclusive to meet the needs of different people and countries for Emoji. In the end, Microsoft designed 1538 Emoji with customizable skin tones, color saturation and more. Notably, Clippy was also introduced as a replacement for the standard paperclip Emoji, but due to legal requirements for Microsoft trademarks, the Emoji is one of the few Emoji that are not open source.
Microsoft wants creators to explore more ways to use their emoji. Friedman explained, “Within Microsoft, we’re a small team and can only do or see so much. We’re eager to get more people involved to help us see and do more to take Emoji to places we couldn’t have foreseen.”
Specifically, creators are able to take Microsoft Emoji and remix them or create new ones based on them, and Friedman said that when his team was designing app icons a few years ago, someone made a Marvel version of the app icon, and they wanted that great creative expression.
Microsoft has now made most of the Emoji in its Emoji library (with 1538 Emoji) open-source on Figma and Github for users to use.
