Contest Launched to Design Official Emoji for CDMX Meg Miller - Fast Company
go to original June 19, 2017

Cities are full of icons and symbols - a visual vernacular that conveys both necessary information and a sense of place to visitors and residents. Wayfinding icons and street signs help people navigate a city and its resources, regardless of the language they speak. And some parts of an urban landscape even become symbols of a city itself: the Eiffel Tower represents Paris, for example, or San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge.

In Mexico City, the local government is seeking to expand its own visual lexicon, with an official emoji sticker pack that will represent the city. On Friday, the city announced an open design competition that asks participants to capture the city in 20 digital symbols. The hope is that the contest will not only result in emojis that resonate with Mexico City citizens but also offer data on how residents relate to the city and communicate the culture of Mexico in general.

“Emojis have become an aesthetic, a playful way of communicating,” says Gabriella Gómez-Mont Valpeoz, the founder and director of Laboratorio para la Ciudad, the city’s experimental office for civic innovation and urban creativity, which is running the contest. The lab opted to keep the design brief relatively open - it asks designers to “design the 20 most original emojis” that represent Mexico City, and submit the vector files by July 16. The judges - Emoji Dick author Fred Benenson, journalist and creator of the Dumpling Emoji Jenny 8 Lee, and other iconography and design experts - will evaluate submissions based on their creativity, originality, and capacity to communicate ideas. “We’re very intrigued with the relationship between a person and a megalopolis, how people actually relate to it, and what emotional and visual responses will we get,” says Gómez-Mont Valpeoz.

..The emoji contest falls under an initiative of the lab’s to expand the application of art and design beyond just the city’s creative sphere. Mexico City has always embraced vibrant symbols - from the nopal devouring a snake depicted on the peso to the green rectangles and circles painted on sidewalks for meetings points after earthquakes. Mexican folk art and ancient imagery are also full of rich iconography. Gómez-Mont Valpeoz felt that Mexico City-centric emojis would fit in well with that Mexican history and tradition.

Read the rest at Fast Company

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