MSN emoticons
Smiley faces for a clearer conversation.
In 2003, Microsoft released version 6.0 of the popular messaging app, MSN Messenger, introducing new personalization features like backgrounds and custom emoticons. Here are a select few that I made.
The 7%-38%-55% rule suggests that non-verbal cues influence our feelings and attitudes in a conversation. However, I found the emoticons that came with the messaging app felt too limiting and I didn't like the ones I found online. So I decided to make my own.
I wanted to create some that allowed my friends and me to express ourselves clearly, without resembling the generic smiley packs commonly found online. I wanted it to look nice and fit in with the official ones.
I started with having a closer look at the official emoticons and figuring out how to recreate them. I measured the size and made a colour palette. The official emoticons had a resolution of 19 by 19 pixels.
The reception for these was great. I uploaded them on a couple of sites and received a lot of positive feedback. There was even a surprising instance when a person I had never talked to before used one of my emoticons in a conversation.
I’ve made the emoticons more than 10 years ago. But I wanted to share it here for a simple reason: this is what made me become familiar with Photoshop--a skill that led me to become a graphic designer.
