Editorial

The editorial brief that I chose was the article, 'Should There be an Emoji for Everything?'. The reason I went with this piece was that I felt it resonated with the conceptual references I usually like to communicate with my work. And I found the challenge of trying to capture the idea of 'emojis' (a widely known and understood form of visual communication) without the use of emojis as motifs in the image quite exciting. If that makes sense..! Routes that I was thinking of taking in order to suggest a concept of this article where:

• Referencing to the idea of the 'gatekeepers of the emoji language'. Exploring the idea that with there being a group of people that decide what can and can't pass as an emoji, should we potentially worry about how that will effect the way that we communicate?
• Comparing emoji use with the way we use body language, as an extension of our linguistic communication. 
• Referencing to all of the emojis that where not permitted by the gatekeepers of the emoji keyboard. Period pants, the condom, the Ulster Banner, radish, rye bread, the Aboriginal Flag and the cannabis leaf to name a few. 

The idea that I eventually came to was to situate a hippo in a swamp like scene, with just the top of its head above water to suggest that it's in hiding. I then included the motif of a fishing bait coming down from the top of the image which I wanted to glow in order to suggest it as a digital object. 

I liked this image, however I didn't find that it communicated the idea of emojis nor had the digital atmosphere that I think needed to be included in order for it to align with the tone of the article. So I first tried changing the colours to give a bit more of a surreal effect

But I still didn't find that this image got the idea across well across so I did a bit of a 180 and completely changed the colours/lines of the scenery surrounding the hippo. Adding a glowing grid background and a more restricted colour palette I felt the digital atmosphere was communicated more clearly.