Popular emojis almost always come in the same colors. Happy faces are yellow, angry faces are red, and so is the most used heart emoji. While we can’t easily alter the colors of the emojis that are programmed into our phones, most people probably wouldn’t want to anyway. The colors associated with each emoji help us understand them better, and changing those colors might confuse us.
So, how do the colors of emojis affect our perception? Emojis have become a popular part of virtual communication, so knowing their color meanings can help us better convey our emotions.
Studies Show That Colors Affect Emoji Perceptions
To some people, emojis might just seem like silly little images that appear on their screen. However, studies have shown that there’s more to them than meets the eye. In a 2022 study, participants viewed five of the basic emojis (happy, sad, angry, surprised, and neutral) in eight different colors to see if a change in hue would affect people’s perceptions.
Sure enough, the participants often viewed the emojis differently when different colors were present. Overall, they thought the happy emoji looked happiest when it was yellow or orange. Not only is yellow the standard color for a happy emoji, but it’s also a color typically associated with joy. Similarly, sad emojis appeared saddest in blue or cyan, while angry emojis looked the most upset in red.
Participants determined that no emotion was present in the neutral emoji when it was gray. The surprised emoji didn’t have a consistent color association, likely because the feeling of being surprised isn’t commonly paired with a color like being angry or sad is. Of course, the participants still recognized some of the emotions even in different colors, but some unexpected pairings, like a red happy face or a green angry face, seemed to create hesitation.
So, even though the expression of each emoji stayed consistent, altering the colors affected how people perceived them. The colors of the emojis we send could have more of an impact than we realize.
Emoji Colors Influence Our Text Conversations
The first emoji, a heart, was created in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita, a Japanese artist. Emojis continued to grow after that, including a wider variety of images. They didn’t become widely popular until the 2010s, when they were included in the Unicode Standard and platforms like iOS and Android started using them.
Even though emojis are fairly new in society, almost everyone uses them to some extent. 92% of the online population uses emojis, making our perception of them matter now more than ever. Most people use emojis to add emotions or enhance the meanings of their messages. While we might not consider the colors associated with them, they could subconsciously play a role in the emojis we settle on.
What Feelings Do Colors Evoke in Specific Emojis?
Colors generally evoke different emotions, but how do they influence the most popular emojis, such as smiley faces and hearts? Let’s find out.
Smiley Faces
Smiley faces are among the most iconic emojis. The basic version is almost always depicted as yellow, and there’s a good reason for that. Yellow is a bright, cheery color that symbolizes happiness, optimism, and positivity. So, yellow makes the most sense for a happy face. It’s also a bold color that stands out from other hues, drawing many people’s eyes in its direction.
Using a smiley face in a text chat is sure to brighten the conversation. People will see it and know that you have positive intentions with your message. Depending on the context, it may even help them feel happier as a result. The laughing emoji, another popular option, is likely yellow for similar reasons to the smiling face.
Angry Faces
While most face emojis are yellow, angry face emojis stand out because they’re red. While some angry faces are still yellow, the more memorable ones are the ones with a hint of red and the ones that are completely red. The redder an emoji face is, the more furious it seems. Red is a bold color, and one of its negative meanings is anger, which is likely why this type of emoji is conveyed using red.
Sick Faces
Nauseated face emojis stand out like angry ones because they’re not yellow like the typical smiley face. Instead, they’re green. Sometimes, it’s a yellow face with a green tint, while other times, the face is completely green. When people feel sick, their skin may seem to have a green tint to it, which is why green is sometimes seen as a sickly color. Without the green in this emoji’s face, it might be difficult to tell the emotion being depicted.
Cold Faces
The cold face is another emoji that isn’t the traditional yellow hue. Instead, these emojis are usually blue, with icicles or snowflakes coming off them. When we feel cold, our skin sometimes has a blue tint to it, so we often associate blue things with feeling cold. Thus, the cold face emojis are blue instead of yellow, so we can more easily understand that the person is freezing.
Other Face Emojis
Most of the other face emojis are yellow, just like smiley faces. The exact explanation for this is unknown, but it’s likely to keep them looking similar to the happy face. Yellow is also a color that stands out and is distinct from human skin tones. So, it works well for making these emojis pop and convey strong emotions when texting.
Thumbs Up
The default thumbs up emoji is usually yellow, likely to match the faces. In 2015, they added skin tone options to this emoji so people could choose their skin tone instead of the default yellow color if they’d like.
Hearts
Heart emojis come in a wide range of colors. Red is likely the default because that’s the color hearts are typically associated with. Red can be a symbol of passion and romance, which is why it’s so commonly used for hearts. However, using different colored heart emojis could convey different meanings and emotions.
While the red heart is typically for romantic partners, orange and yellow hearts are often used for friendships. Green hearts can signify health, while blue hearts indicate trust. Purple and pink have different meanings depending on who you talk to. Some see those colors as romantic hearts, while others see them as friendly. Black hearts are typically used to convey love related to grief. White hearts could indicate pure love, while brown could symbolize love and stability.
Of course, not all people read into the color of heart emojis. Sometimes, people choose particular hearts just because they like the colors. However, as you can evoke different feelings depending on the color, consider that next time you send one.
Party Popper
The party popper emoji is frequently used when someone is excited and wants to celebrate. The base usually has yellow and blue stripes, and then blue and red/pink streamers fly out of it. This emoji has lots of small details, making it more vibrant and colorful than other popular emojis. While the exact reason for the color scheme is unknown, it’s likely meant to offer a vibrant design that catches someone’s eye and is fun to look at since it’s used for joyous occasions.
Sparkles
The sparkles emoji is another unique one that’s currently trending. It was designed to portray beauty and joy, but it’s now commonly used to emphasize certain words in a sentence by putting sparkles around them. The sparkles are almost always yellow or gold to help them stand out and make them look elegant.
Other Object Emojis
Of course, there are many other emojis besides the ones mentioned above. Yet, many of them are objects, including plants, animals, and foods. While many of these emojis are colorful, their colors don’t have any symbolism behind them. In most cases, they’re simply the colors you would expect that object to be, such as a green frog or a red watermelon slice. Their colors make them interesting but don’t have a deeper meaning.
Your Device Could Affect Emoji Perception
When using emojis, it’s easy to forget that emojis don’t look exactly the same on every device. For example, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, and Google devices all use different emojis. Luckily, the color scheme is usually the same, but small details can make them look slightly different from how they might look on your friend’s phone.
Each emoji is a code in your device, so when you add an emoji, it’s treated like another character in the device’s font. So, each brand has unique fonts for their emojis, making them differ slightly in appearance. Copyright issues could also affect a device’s ability to use existing emojis.
While your perception might not change much between devices, slight changes in style and color could affect the meaning. For example, the angry face on Apple devices is often more orange than red, making it look less aggressive than the Google angry face, which is entirely red. However, the cold face on Google devices is a lighter blue than on Samsung devices, making the Samsung ones look colder. So, the slight color changes of emojis may make the emotions seem more intense on some devices than others.
