Emoji update includes afro comb, goose and more hearts

A shaking head, pair of high-fiving hands and an afro comb are all set to head to smartphones over the next year as the draft list for Emoji 15.0 is revealed.

Three new shades of heart have been introduced – light blue, pink, and grey – as well as a smattering of animals including a donkey and goose, vegetables in the form of peas and ginger, and cultural artefacts like maracas and a wooden flute.

Two new icons have also been introduced: a pink Khanda to represent Sikhism alongside other major world religions, and a blue wifi logo.

The Unicode Consortium, an industry body which handles text rendering standards, is responsible for approving new emoji designs before individual smartphone manufacturers choose how to render them. For eight years, online resource Emojipedia has provided “sample images”, illustrating the new emoji in the style of Apple’s iOS emoji set, to help visualise how the designs will appear in next year’s updates.

“Additionally, as this is only a draft emoji list, each emoji is subject to change prior to final approval in September 2022,” said Keith Broni, Emojipedia’s editor-in-chief. “However, it is worth noting the majority of draft emoji candidates have ended up included on the final list over the last number of years.”

The pink heart is a particularly desired new emoji, Broni added, and has been one of the most popular emoji requests since the company began tracking them in 2016. But other than that, it’s slim pickings for emoji fans: the Emoji 15.0 update is the smallest ever, with just 31 new emojis planned for introduction. Last year, more than 100 were introduced in Emoji 14.0. And for the first time, there’s not a single new “person-style” emoji to be added.

The draft list is set to be finalised in September, at which point device manufacturers will be able to begin their own implementation. For iOS, that typically comes in January of each year, while Android handsets vary depending on the manufacturer.