New York's Museum of Modern Art has just announced the acquisition of NTT DOCOMO’s original set of 176 emoji, first designed for cell phones in 1999, to its permanent collection, citing: "These 12 x 12 pixel humble masterpieces of design planted the seeds for the explosive growth of a new visual language." The now-ubiquitous glyph set joins other digital designs, such as the '@' symbol and a series of video games, which were acquired by the Architecture and Design department in 2010 and 2012, respectively. Photo 1 of 17 in Graphic Design and Illustration by Aileen Kwun from From the Editors' Inbox: October 2016

Graphic Design and Illustration

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New York's Museum of Modern Art has just announced the acquisition of NTT DOCOMO’s original set of 176 emoji, first designed for cell phones in 1999, to its permanent collection, citing: "These 12 x 12 pixel humble masterpieces of design planted the seeds for the explosive growth of a new visual language." The now-ubiquitous glyph set joins other digital designs, such as the '@' symbol and a series of video games, which were acquired by the Architecture and Design department in 2010 and 2012, respectively.