Today open-source emoji makers Emoji One, first launched in September 2014, updated their set of emoji images in a project known as Emoji One: "The 2016 Collection".

Above: Unicode 8.0 emojis in the 2016 collection: Hugging Face, Bottle With Popping Cork, Sign of the Horns, and Crab.

This update includes all the emojis in the Unicode Standard which have become familiar to users of iOS since Apples latest update in October.

In addition, all images from the first release of Emoji One have been updated with a more detailed visual style.

Above: Wrapped Present Emoji: The new 2016 version is shown on the right.

Emoji One joins Twemoji, the open source emoji project from Twitter, in supporting full emoji functionality. This includes:

• Unicode 1.1 — Unicode 8.0 Emoji support
• Emoji Modifiers for skin tone color changes
• Flags for supported countries
• ZWJ Sequences for same-sex couples and family combinations

Above: Emoji One 2016 supports emojis for the entire Unicode Standard.

Design

Emoji One 2016 uses flat colors, but with a lot of detail included - to the point where you might be forgiven thinking these are shaded bitmaps like Apples emoji images.

The entire Emoji One set of images have been created using vector graphics, and are distributed as SVGs that can be rendered clearly at any size.

The detail included is really impressive for vector graphics, being sharp and clear at small sizes, but quite detailed when blown up larger.

Smileys have the most familiar appearance, as theres not as much to work with compared to other categories of emoji:

The other human-looking faces use a default-yellow skin tone, unless a modifier is applied. Heres how the default-set appear across recently updated platforms:

The design is quite playful, which was part of the plan according to Emoji One founder Rick Moby:

"We wanted to raise the level of fun. We wanted to be the anti-generic emoji set. Whatever it took to bring out that emotional response. The simple pile of poo for whatever reason took 20+ iterations before we were satisfied enough."

Above: Humans all default to yellow skin tone in Emoji One 2.0.

In particular, the animals are quite adorable. Who knew a spider could be considered cute?

The differences between the first release and this latest 2016 update are most clear in the Travel & Places category where the updated images are more colorful and creative than they were in the past. It might be tempting to skip quickly through some of these, but each has been given a full makeover.

Above: Comparison of old and new Hotel, Convenience Store, and School.

Modifiers

All five modifiers are supported for skin tone changes, which can be applied to the human-looking emoji characters.

Above: Skin tone modifiers are supported in this latest release.

Hair colors on modified emojis are all shades of brown or black, with the exception of Emoji Modifier Fitzpatrick Type-3 which takes Apples lead in showing blond hair (sorry redheads).

This differs from Windows, which uses dark hair for all skin tones, and Twitter which makes the default-emoji have orange (red) hair.

Above: Sleuth or Spy in The 2016 Collection.

The Sleuth or Spy emoji supports emoji modifiers in this set, even though the Unicode Standard does not currently recommended this.

The same emoji works on Twitter.com, but will appear with a modifier-square after it on iOS where its not supported (yet):

Flags

257 emoji flags are supported, which is the same number supported by Apple. This covers all of ISO 3166-1 including optional flags such as the EU andKosovo.

Above: Flags have a custom circular design in the latest Emoji One release.

British countries such as England, Scotland and Wales do not have their own flags, as the proposal to allow for sub-regions has not yet been approved.

Unlike other emoji sets, Emoji One now uses circles for the flags, instead of rectangular designs shown on other platforms.

ZWJ Sequences

Families are all included, as are same-sex couples. As with Apples implementation of these characters, only the default yellow skin tone is permitted.

Above: Family emojis permit a range of combinations.

These use a Zero Width Joiner (ZWJ) sequence to combine multiple other emojis into a single visible character.

What Else

Theres a lot to see here, but these are the emojis that caught my attention when first looking through the update.