Thursday Buzz: Design Your Own Emoji

Looking for a way to draw attention to your event, or possibly even your metro area? You may want to take a cue from Mexico City.

The idea for Emoji CDMX came from Laboratory for the City, an experimental project launched by the local government a few years ago.

“One of the small contemporary graphic revolutions has been the use of emoticons,” the laboratory’s director, Gabriella Gómez-Mont, told CityLab  (opens in a new tab). “We thought it would be interesting to ask designers to create an emoji package that speaks to the icons that best represent the city. Not only its jewels, but also the local idiosyncrasies.”

To that end, the city launched an emoji competition earlier this year, which drew about 2,000 submissions from nearly 100 designers. The 20 that the judges deemed best will be packaged in an app dedicated to the city.

The approach could be worth copying for a local visitors bureau, which likely has culture of its own it that could be represented by an emoji, or an association looking for its own iconic symbol.

Right Place, Right Time

Media Relations Lessons from My Summer Vacation Fiasco https://t.co/tEMhLssNFs  (opens in a new tab)

— Kivi Leroux Miller (@kivilm) August 2, 2017  (opens in a new tab)

Nothing like becoming a part of the story. Kivi Leroux Miller, a well-known nonprofit marketing blogger and CEO of the consulting firm Nonprofit Marketing Guide, found herself quoted in an Associated Press story  (opens in a new tab) about a major power outage last week on Ocracoke Island, a popular vacation spot on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Miller, who posted about her family’s ruined vacation on Instagram (leading to the contact from the AP reporter), noted that the quotes had a ripple effect that gave them reach far beyond the Outer Banks.

The secret to getting covered online, she says, is that she (unwittingly) jumped on a major news event as it was happening, which led to her comments being chosen over those of other people.

“The modern media relations lessons we teach at Nonprofit Marketing Guide were reinforced for me personally last week,” she wrote on her blog  (opens in a new tab).

Other Links of Note

The 411 on digital asset management. At CMSWire, contributor John Kottcamp makes the case for asset management  (opens in a new tab) from a branding perspective.

Need some ideas for boosting your events? Jeffrey Cufaude of Idea Architects has quite a few—a dozen, in fact  (opens in a new tab).

Quality matters in app stores. The Verge reports that Google has been demoting apps  (opens in a new tab) with low ratings or a tendency to crash. If your app fits in these categories, you might want to fix it.

A few of the winning emoji entries by designer Itzel Oropeza Castillo. (Emoji CDMX/via Univision)