Flat Design Emoji

Cultural/Communication

Simplified, two-dimensional emoji designs without realistic textures or shadows, reflecting modern flat design principles.

Flat design emoji use simple shapes, solid colors, and minimal ornamentation. This style emerged as platforms moved away from skeuomorphism in the mid-2010s.

Twemoji and OpenMoji are prominent examples of flat emoji design. Google's emoji also moved toward flatter designs with the "blob" emoji era and subsequent redesigns.

Flat emoji have practical advantages: they render clearly at small sizes, scale well, use less data as vector graphics, and align with modern UI design conventions. However, some users prefer the expressiveness of 3D designs.

Related Terms

OpenMoji OpenMoji
An open-source emoji library designed by students at HfG Schwabisch Gmund, providing consistent, minimalist emoji for everyone.
Skeuomorphic Emoji Skeuomorphic Emoji
Emoji designed to look like realistic, three-dimensional objects with shadows, gradients, and texture — common in early emoji designs.
Twemoji Twemoji
An open-source emoji set originally created by Twitter, providing SVG and PNG emoji assets that can be used in any project.

Related Tools

🔀 Platform Compare Platform Compare
Compare how emojis render across Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, and more. See visual differences side by side.