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Makemoji is a new app that lets you construct your own tiny little emoji icons, whether they be devilish smilies or a some other cuddly incarnations.
Makemoji has already raised $1 million in seed funding. And with an Instagram-like news feed and profile, it's technically the first social network for sharing emojis, beating the upcoming emoji-only "Emojli" social network to market.
The heart of Makemoji, however, is the emoji creation tool.
"The create screen is the meat of the app, where we spent 99% of development work and time," founder and CEO Tyler Breton told Business Insider. "You can start from scratch using circles, squares, and colors to create your own, or you can use one of the presets."
You create emojis by building upon the basic shape or body of your emoji and adding detail with each successive layer. You can then drag and resize each shape, or change the color settings by tapping on the paint palette icon.
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If you make a mistake, you can wipe a layer clean with the eraser button. You can even build emoji around an existing photo by importing a photo from your Camera Roll.
The user experience here could be smoother (I often had to tap and re-tap an option or color to get it to read my input), but there's plenty of options to choose from, and the layer-by-layer process works pretty well.
When you're all done creating your emoji, you can give it a name or label and then send it via iMessage or upload it to Instagram.
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All of the emojis you create are stored on your profile and posted to the Makemoji news feed, where others can share, comment, use, or repost their favorites.
Newcomers automatically follow the official Makemoji profile, which gives you access to a library of already-created emojis.
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While Makemoji lets you insert your emojis into your iMessage conversations, the app differs from other emoji apps that can plug into your phone's keyboard, giving you instant access.
As of right now, there's no way to access your Makemoji creations from within iMessage. Instead, you have to go through the app, which will then insert your emoji into an iMessage conversation. It's a feature that feels like it should be there, and the current method adds a lot of friction to the act of using what you create. Perhaps in iOS 8, which will allow users to install third-party keyboards, Makemoji will find its way into the keyboard for easy accessibility.
At the end of the day, Makemoji isn't the polished emoji ecosystem it seeks to one day be, but it does offer a straightforward, precise, and fun way to try your hand at making your own emojis. That's not a bad start.
You can download Makemoji for free over at the App Store.