You can now send an Ook to a friend. Virtually, that is.
NAIT has joined the emoji craze with 2 characters – an Ook and the NAIT Ooks Athletics logo – launched this November.
The idea began with NAIT’s president and CEO, Dr. Glenn Feltham (@GlennFeltham, as he’s known on Twitter, where the new emoji was first used). “The way we communicate is evolving but a picture is still worth a thousand words,” says Feltham. “I am so proud of the new NAIT emojis which so clearly demonstrate our pride in NAIT.
The new emojis, though larger than conventional ones, are part of a trend toward customized visual representations of emotions, objects or events in social media conversations. A crowdfunding campaign to fund EDMOjis, for example, a line of more than 60 symbols specific to Edmonton, has raised more than triple its goal.
NAIT’S collection of custom emojis isn’t that large, but may grow, says senior web designer Nathan Salter (Digital Media Design ’10), who led the project to design them in house. “Once people get using them, I think there’s an opportunity to create a lot more,” he says.
Once you download the emojis as graphics, you can use them on most social platforms. Send them in an email, attach them to a tweet or post them on Facebook.