Task 6: An emoji story
Reflection:
When I created my emoji story, I focused on ideas, imagery and emotions rather than individual words or syllables. I wanted the emojis to capture the feeling and themes of the movie instead of trying to translate each word literally.
I started with the title because it sets the tone for everything that follows. Each emoji represented a concept or feeling rather than a direct phrase. This reminded me of Bolter’s (2001) idea of the “breakout of the visual,” where images are not just decorations for text but form a language of their own. In this task, emojis became narrative tools, performing as small visual symbols that carried both plot and emotion.
I began with this opening sequence (the emojis I used in the title of the movie) because, as Kress (2005) notes, the choice of mode directly shapes how meaning is created. The telescope represented a human search that reaches between worlds, while the “sparkle” and “galaxy” emojis suggested the vastness of the universe. When transcribing the title, starting with these visuals helped me establish the tone and direction before constructing the rest of the plot. I then built contrasts with the use of the emojis of crops, rush, a globe, and a skull to show loss and decay, and the emojis of a rocket, a hole, and an hourglass to represent time and transformation in order to capture the tension between the personal and the cosmic.
I selected this particular story because its themes are deeply visual and emotional (and it’s my favourite movie of all times), which made the title and plot easier to express through imagery. The main challenge was balancing emotional symbols such as❤️with scientific ones such as an hourglass. Transcribing meaning only through visuals made me realize how challenging multimodal communication can be. It required me to think carefully about how to express emotion and action without words that guide the reader.
As Kress and van Leeuwen (2001) describe, digital creators today act more like orchestrators, blending different modes to make meaning. For example, if I had to represent a biography, it would be nearly impossible to use only emojis to show who the person is or why they matter. This activity showed me both the creative potential and the limits of visual storytelling. This exercise helped me see how emoji storytelling reflects the multimodal shift in literacy, where communication now depends on how visual, emotional, and cultural signs work together to convey understanding.
References
Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, 22(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2004.12.004
Kress, G. R., & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. Oxford University Press.