Iconathon #3 - Creating African emojis

In French, we say, “Never two without three”. So after our first two Iconathon during which we designed icons representing the informal sector and African Food, our community of designers gathered in July to work on another set of African emojis!

This awesome event was organized in partnership with Kombosa Studioand Deck.

A small reminder of the concept of Iconathon : contraction of “icon” and “hackathon” the iconathon is a public design workshop in which graphic designers implement their talent for creation of visuals representing African society.

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Why ?

The aim of this third edition was to create emojis which are the reflections of our day to day life in Africa, and then share them with the community.

An emoji is a representation of an expression, a feeling in everyday life opposed to the icon which is an image representing an action, an object, a concept.

The idea of this theme came from the observation that none of the existing emojis could describe classic African emotions or expressions.

This is how we dooooo it !

Before tackling the topic, a quick recap was made on the history of emojis. Then the Designers agreed on the styles of work to adopt to make sure there is a consistency in the production. Thus, the work began after a brief introduction of participants along with coffee cups to stimulate the neurons. On your marks, ready, create!!

Results

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We were truly amazed by the emojis that our guys imagined and then designed after few hours of work !! From the “tchip” to the famous “dou dem” through the “xeelu” and the “grawoul”, you will be delightfully served.

You can find the icons in JPEG below and feel free to get in touch should you need emojis in PNG or SVG or want to work on specific icons sets with us : hello@yuxdakar.com

THANKS to all participants!

The fourth edition is coming soon, follow us on social networks to be the first to know!