Article in Product Design UX UI, Design categories.
Design Challenge: Week 12
Every 2 weeks, the design team here at Fueled task…
Design Challenge: Week 1
For a while now at Fueled in the design team, we have tasked ourselves with a bi-monthly design challenge. The task is simple; every 2 weeks we take a little break from projects and compose our own dazzling take on a proposal — taken from a pool of challenge ideas. We have just 2 hours to tackle the brief. However, there are no winners in the design challenge. It proves invaluable to us to share our ideas, explore our processes, and grow as designers. We love it, and we're proud of our work — so it's about time we shared it with the world.
The Brief
Find a non-existent emoji which meets the unicode guidelines and submit your proposal.🤤
The Submissions
Alex Lockey
"So my submission is an ode to Keith Flint, lead singer of The Prodigy, who passed away just a day before the challenge submission. When I heard the news I knew instantly what I wanted to do for the challenge: recreate the visuals of the 'Firestarter' music video. It's such an iconic look, with the angry expression and the striking hair. I brought out the surrounding orange in the gradient to help it stand out, and the hair took the longest to get right! I also wanted to represent more than just the emoji, so I added the backdrop to reflect the music video."
RIP Keith Flint.
Mike Barton
"In an attempt to find an emoji that doesn't exist, I was shocked to see that there is no 'can' emoji, or specifically a beer can emoji. I knew I had to recreate a six pack of cans, because sometimes the pint of beer emoji doesn't quite cut it. Sometimes you just want to kick back and enjoy some tinnies rather than head out."
Please drink responsibly.
Ryan Murphy
"So I fully bought into the 6 nations propaganda - the time for drinking beer! The iconic pint of Guinness seemed the most appropriate, so I incorporated the mutually iconic stages of pouring a pint, with the pouring, resting, and full pint stages. Of course, emoji's are brand agnostic so for lawsuit's sake this is just a 'stout' emoji. I enjoyed incorporating the clouding and foam with some different gradients. I used the tumbler of whiskey as a reference to get the glass look right. All in all there's over 20 layers (mostly vectors) for quite a simple concept."
Happy Six Nations!
Andrew Power
"I was surprised to hear that this emoji doesn't already exist, but it doesn't. For me, theres a lot of uses for a black metal goth emoji. It perfectly describes trying to get across the expression of not being able to show an expression. I'd expect this emoji to be unexpectedly popular. It needs to exist."
André Gonçalves
"I wasn't sure if this exists or not, but it should do. I think this speaks for itself. There are some attempts already out there, but I thought I'd try to create one. I started by photoshopping some existing emojis, then touching up the rest in Sketch. Theres not much else to it."
*dab*
Glenn Hitchcock
"As we all know, the moon emoji is the best emoji. To me, it's a travesty that the rest of the solar system isn't acknowledged in a similar vein. I've wondered for a while about designing the whole solar system as emojis, including the earth, with a funny face. I would change the facial expressions and features of each of the planets too. For example, I've given Saturn a slightly bigger grin and changed around the eyes. Forever using the moon emoji..."
Prekesh Chavda
"For mine I started out in Figma, because the points and shapes available for designing vectors allowed for a lot of customisation. It did take slightly longer than two hours, and the Pokedex actually took the longest. As a concept, the fire stone doesn't have a defined look anywhere so there were a few variations to work with. I started with a gemstone then added the icon within it. The gradients within it were simply trial and error until it looked right but I'm happy with it. Although, as emojis these don't really scale down as well (apart from the Pokeball)."
James Lindsay
"The chair emoji is one I've wanted to use for a long time. Although, not necessarily this one. Unfortunately I didn't get to explore the concept as much as I wanted. Potentially, I thought about experimenting with different forms and types of chair, as there's a lot of variation available. It's all about what chairs would suit being scaled down emoji sized, so I'd probably experiment with an egg chair or a fold chair. Who knows."
Sean Kerry
"I'm not gonna lie, I struggled to find the mental capacity to make this submission 3D (suffering from a bad case of man flu). Although, I thought I'd have a pop at creating my favourite cocktail: an Old Fashioned. It's quite simple, and it scales down quite well. There's not much else to it. It kind of hurts to talk."
*Violin music*
Dan Makepeace
"Unfortunately I couldn't fully finish my emoji, but here's my Husky emoji. I thought that there isn't enough variation in the dog emoji available, and let's face it we need a husky emoji. I used a picture of my own dog as a reference, so it's pretty bang on what she looks like - down to the little details. I started in Illustrator, worked on it for an hour or so then got too busy to finish. I like the detail, but scaled down the eyes are super bright and pop out a bit too much so I kept it at this size, but hey, thats a Husky. My dog's name is Ciara by the way."
See Dan's Bio
Emily Cressey
"As a proud northerner, the only emoji that I could think of doing was a classic brew. The coffee emoji just doesn't work if you're asking someone if they want a cup of tea. I made use of the different coloured emoji feature to display different strengths, so you can really personalise your emoji. In true brew spirit, I added details like a little tea stain down the side of the mug. Apple needs to add this emoji. For the northerners."
Next time...
As we complete a new challenge every other week, keep your eyes peeled for our latest submissions. 👀
