In 1999 the Japanese mobile phone company NTT DOCOMO released a set of 176 emoji for mobile phones and pagers. Designed by Shigetaka Kurita, a young designer at the company, on a twelve-by-twelve-pixel grid, the emoji facilitated the nascent practice of text messaging that accelerated dramatically when messaging moved to mobile devices.
Emoji—a portmanteau of the Japanese words e, or “picture,” and moji, or “character”—when combined with text, allow for more nuanced intonation. Filling in for body language, they reassert the human within the deeply impersonal, abstract space of electronic communication. Now, with more than 2,600 in use, emoji have evolved far beyond NTT DOCOMO’s original set into an essential, global, and increasingly complex companion to written language.
 This volume, originally published in English as part of the MoMA One on One series, Paul Galloway traces the DNA for today’s emoji in Kurita’s humble pixelated designs.