Last week we learned that Google is giving all 4,000 plus of its emoji a new look, called Noto 3D, and today we get a sneak peek at them thanks to a leak.
In a post on X, developer RKBDI posted four screenshots of emoji and linked to a download of the entire library on their Telegram. There are about 250 posted emoji representing the bulk of smiley face variations as well as flora and fauna.
Stirring up an old design debate
Each emoji is still recognizably itself, just with a slight skew toward something more realistic looking or with more depth, depending on whether or not the object exists in the actual world.
This new look for the emoji is a return to skeuomorphism, as one reader commented when I wrote about the change last week. But as I argued over a decade ago when mobile UI designers yearned for flat design, it removes humanity and creativity from devices we interact with all day.
It’s something that Jennifer Daniel, illustrator and Emoji Kitchen “chef” at Google, seems to agree with. After the announcement last week, she posted on Instagram to celebrate and declare that not only were the emoji created by people, not AI, but that it imbued them with that much more meaning.
“Today we shared a sneak peak of our new hand-modeled 3D emoji (!!!!!!) YES THEY ARE ACTUALLY TRUE 3D OBJECTS!!!!!” she wrote in the caption. “Our favorite characters now have the same depth of your very real thoughts and feelings.”
The emoji were hand-drawn, as emphasized in a post on X by Dr. Alexander Robinson, an emoji researcher at Google.
When and where to find them
The new Noto 3D emoji will debut on Pixel phones later this year and will be available across all of Google eventually.
