With just two days before World Emoji Day on July 17th, Emojipedia has shared a list of draft characters the Unicode Consortium will consider for final inclusion in Unicode 14.0. The list includes charming candidates like a melting smiley face, a disco ball, beans and a pointing finger in various skin tones. Not every emoji you see below will make the cut. However, once the Unicode Consortium decides on a final candidate list in September, the remaining ones will make their way to your devices starting in late 2021 and throughout 2022.
As with almost every potential Unicode release since 2014, the draft list includes characters designed with diversity and inclusivity in mind. In particular, you’ll notice there are several new versions of the handshake emoji. And that’s a big deal. Due to technical limitations, it was one of the few characters you couldn’t modify with a skin tone, but after about two years of work, that’s almost certainly changing with Unicode 14.0.
What’s also notable about the above list is that the Unicode Consortium has been working on it longer than usual. In 2020, the organization delayed the release of Unicode 14.0 due to the pandemic. “This year we simply can’t commit to the same schedule we’ve adhered to in the past,” it said at the time, noting the pandemic had overwhelmed the volunteer contributors it depends on for its work around emoji.