i-mode Emoji vs Manga Lettering
iモード絵文字 / 漫画の描き文字
i-mode Emoji comes from Symbol Systems and Manga Lettering from Lettering. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
i-mode Emoji
One hundred and seventy six pictographs that tell faces, weather and things apart using only the placement of dots on a twelve by twelve grid. Shigetaka Kurita drew them for NTT DOCOMO's i-mode, and MoMA holds the original set.
Manga Lettering
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In Japanese manga, sound effects and even the feel of silence are drawn as pictures, from a booming don to a hushed shiin. Hand-lettering turns the texture of a sound into line weight and shape, dissolving the border between image and word inside the panel.
| i-mode Emoji | Manga Lettering | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1998-1999 | 1930s– |
| Family | Symbol Systems | Lettering |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Figures fitted to a twelve by twelve grid / Shapes made of mass rather than of line / Set inline at the size of a letter / Faces, weather and symbols at one coarseness | Sound drawn as shape / Weight matched to texture / Placement crossing panels / Even silence written (shiin) |
| Best used for | Designing signs that must read at the size of a letter as one set on a coarse grid · Telling state by a figure instead of a word where only a few dots can be lit | Comics and paneled ads where sound must be written inside the picture · Still images given the flow of time without captions or balloons |
| Type | Built from masses of dots rather than lines, sized to sit inline at the height of the text | Line weight and edge shape carry the hardness of the sound |
| Composition | The coarse grid fixed first, every figure told apart inside that one cell | Lettering straddling panel borders and figures, following the reading path |
| Material | Faces, weather and things held at one coarseness, dots reduced to the limit where they still read apart | Written with the same pen as the art, reversed white against solid black |
| Caution | Chasing fine detail inside the grid clogs the dots, and at the size of the text the figure no longer says what it is. | Setting sound effects in a ready-made typeface keeps the hardness and speed out of the line, leaving a note floating above the drawing. |