Proof That Diverse Emoji Are On Their Way

Great news: Diverse emoji are on their way.

The Unicode Consortium sets the international standards for characters - like emoji - across different software platforms, and the latest draft of its emoji report clearly demonstrates intentions to represent characters of all skin tones.

"People all over the world want to have emoji that reflect more human diversity, especially for skin tone," the report reads. "The Unicode emoji characters for people and body parts are meant to be generic, yet following the precedents set by the original Japanese carrier images, they are often shown with a light skin tone instead of a more generic (inhuman) appearance, such as a yellow/orange color or a silhouette."

The report says that the next version of Unicode will include different skin color options:

"Unicode Version 8.0 is adding 5 symbol modifier characters that provide for a range of skin tones for human emoji," the report reads. "These characters are based on the six tones of the Fitzpatrick scale, a recognized standard for dermatology. The exact shades may vary between implementations."

The report was edited by Mark Davis, co-founder and president of the Unicode Consortium, and Peter Edberg, Apple engineer who focuses on Unicode text utilities and released November 3. Although this was just Version 1.0 of this technical report, it provides solid proof that Unicode is focusing on bringing diverse emoji to your keyboard soon.

Via: Myles Tanzer