Shigetaka kurita biography of william shakespeare

Japanese interface designer and inventor of the emoji

Shigetaka Kurita (栗田 穣崇, born May 9, 1972, Gifu Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese interface designer often cited for his early work with emoji sets.^[1][2][3][4] Many refer to him as the creator of the emoji, a claim that has been clarified in recent years.^[5][6] He was part of the team that created one of the first emojis used solely for communication, a heart-shaped pictogram that appeared on an NTT DoCoMopager aimed at teenagers.

It went on to become the Red Heart emoji.

This development and the aftermath of its use led Kurita to design a set of 176 colored emojis. Many of the general-use emojis used today by Unicode can be traced back to Kurita's set.

He now works for Dwango Co. Ltd., a Japanese game company owned by Kadokawa Dwango Corporation.

The NTT DoCoMo emoji set he created is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New