구리타 시게타카

1999년 NTT 도코모의 i-mode를 위해 최초의 이모지 세트 176개를 만든 일본 아티스트.

Shigetaka Kurita was a member of the team developing NTT DoCoMo's i-mode mobile internet service in the late 1990s. He created 176 emoji to help facilitate electronic communication, drawing inspiration from manga, kanji, and street signs.

The original 176 emoji covered weather, traffic, technology, and basic emotions in a 12×12 pixel grid — far simpler than today's detailed designs. Kurita's original emoji set is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Though Kurita created the first set, emoji evolved through contributions from multiple Japanese carriers before Unicode standardization in 2010.