I was inspired for this Rip. Mix. Feed assignment by the question posed in our course notes on the breakout of the visual and the shifting balance between alphabet and icon: How, for example, do “emoticons” (emotion icons) modify reading and writing?
I wanted to see if I could tell a story using only icons and no text. I definitely don’t think emoticons are always an effective form of communication on their own, but I have always been interested in how people use them to enhance their messages. While communicating purely in emoticons would certainly present challenges, there’s no denying the effectiveness of some of them as a response to someone else’s text communication or the fact that they can turn a stern sounding message into something much lighter.
I took a bit of a leap from emoticons and used emojis for my story instead:
I was attempting to communicate my journey through the MET program in the emoji comic strip above. While I’m getting ahead of myself in terms of graduation, it’s not far off now and I’m definitely dreaming of some future vacation time! And while I don’t have 23 extra brains after nearly completing the program, I’ve certainly learned a lot along the way 🙂 (<– did this emoji change the way you interpreted my message?).
I feel like I’ve only brushed the surface of the emoticon/emoji world and am looking forward to doing a deeper dive for the final assignment for this course.
Alicia Lok-Malek
July 23, 2018 — 9:32 pm
Very interesting.
I have been using emojis at work more as a way of connecting virtually with our remote clients. I am curious when people use them in a work setting and when they do not. At the moment, for me it seems to help build rapport when people are working remotely.
marcia kondo
July 31, 2018 — 9:56 pm
Great use of emojis! I was interested in exploring emojis and hieroglyphics and/or other visual languages for my final project but decided to do something else instead. Looking forward to seeing your final project.