This Woman Is Fighting for a "Sensible" Show Emoji
While emojis have both gotten more diverse and more in depth across categories, there remains a void of options when it comes to clothes and, particularly, shoes. This vexed public relations specialist Florie Hutchinson, who teamed up with graphic designer and emoji specialist Aphee Messer to create a prototype for the "Woman's Flat Shoe" emoji, which is up for vote soon by the ~*mysterious*~ Unicode Consortium.
While you can get everything from hot pot to chestnuts to, yes, avocados in the food section, the shoe emoji selection comes down to a Man's Shoe (literally the name), Running Shoe (unisex), High-Heeled Shoe (coded for women), Woman's Sandal, and Woman's Boot. While these are all valid shoe options, Hutchinson noticed that there wasn't a dedicated women's shoe that didn't come with some sort of heel.
The mother of three was reportedly breastfeeding her daughter when she came up with the first spark of inspiration for a "Women's Flat Shoe" emoji. As she put it to the Atlantic, "I just think it’s one of those things that, at the time, to whoever designed it, it seemed like a sensible thing that women would immediately gravitate to. But with a bit of hindsight, you realize that [this absence] is systematic - and symptomatic of a greater problem."
After reaching out to a Jennifer 8. Lee, a member of the Unicode Consortium who helped bring the dumpling emoji into existence, Hutchinson got positive feedback about her gut feeling, and she got in contact with Messer.
Now, their design is up for vote in a week, alongside sixty-six other designs. As Lee shares, "I think clothes in general are an area of the emoji vocabulary that needs to be rethought and done in a more systematic way." If approved, this sensible shoe will surely become many people's, women or otherwise, go-to footwear emoji.
Read the whole story here.
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