In June 2015, Unicode officially embraced emoji characters with the release of Emoji version 1.0 after the recommendation of the UTC. Unicode emoji report defined the framework to display characters in emoji format. The framework was aimed at improving the interoperability of emoji characters that were already in use and incorporating new pictographs.
The proposals included 722 NTT DoCoMo pictographs and Japanese symbols, symbol sets from webdings & wingdings font and 247 national flags. Five emoji symbol modifier characters based on Fitzpatrick Skin Tones were devised to match the skin tones of the human characters.
Let's browse through all the 1250+ emoji characters approved in the first batch:
Faces
Gestures and Parts of Body
Hearts
People
Animals
Birds
Aquatic Life
Bugs
Plants
Fruits
Vegetables
Food
Drink
Activities
Places
Transport
Weather and Sky
Objects
Symbol
Flags
Skin tone modifiers