# i-mode Emoji (iモード絵文字)

> 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.

- IndexStyle No.314 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/imode-emoji
- Kind: Style · Family: Symbol Systems · Era: 1998-1999
- Mood: Intimacy, Play, Technique
- What this family collects: Every set here was designed with a particular reader in mind, whether that reader identifies a household, signals to another ship, reads by fingertip, or is a scanning machine.

## Defining characteristics

- 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

## 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

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Built from masses of dots rather than lines, sized to sit inline at the height of the text
- Layout & structure: The coarse grid fixed first, every figure told apart inside that one cell
- Material & texture: Faces, weather and things held at one coarseness, dots reduced to the limit where they still read apart

## Colour

Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.

- Ground: #fcfdfc
- The colour it is remembered by: #ffdd67
- Text and outlines: #4c3526

## What to avoid

Chasing fine detail inside the grid clogs the dots, and at the size of the text the figure no longer says what it is.

## Application checklist

Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style.

- [ ] Visible in the piece: Figures fitted to a twelve by twelve grid
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Shapes made of mass rather than of line
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Set inline at the size of a letter
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Faces, weather and symbols at one coarseness
- [ ] The layout follows: The coarse grid fixed first, every figure told apart inside that one cell
- [ ] The lettering follows: Built from masses of dots rather than lines, sized to sit inline at the height of the text
- [ ] The material and surface follow: Faces, weather and things held at one coarseness, dots reduced to the limit where they still read apart
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #fcfdfc as ground, #ffdd67 carrying the style, #4c3526 for text and outlines
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Pictogram System (案内用ピクトグラム)** — Unified symbol systems that name facilities and actions without language. Tokyo 1964 systematized sport and wayfinding symbols; the AIGA/DOT transportation set became the public-domain world standard. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/pictogram-system
- **Kawaii (カワイイ)** — Japan's aesthetic of round contours, big eyes, pastel and looseness that summons the urge to protect. From girls' handwriting and fancy goods it softened the surface of an entire society, from public signage to corporate mascots. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/kawaii

## Compose it with something else

The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=imode-emoji+pictogram-system

## Further study

- Kurita's original set
- Unicode standardization
- comparing vendor design dialects

## Reference works

- Open source emoji set Twemoji (CC BY 4.0) — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Twemoji%201f4dd.svg
- Google Noto Color Emoji, emoji from each category — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Noto%20Color%20Emoji%20From%20Each%20Unicode%20Emoji%20Category.jpg
- EmojiOne 2.2.7, smiling face, 2016 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emojione%201F600.svg

## Source of record

- MoMA Collection, Shigetaka Kurita, Emoji — https://www.moma.org/collection/works/196070

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/imode-emoji
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/imode-emoji/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)