Skype for Vampires: New Emoticons

Skype's designers had a unique brief: enrich Skype IM conversation for vampires. Notes from the original design specification:

Title

vampire IM emoticons

Short Summary

We're building an IM product for vampires. One visual element are the emoticons vampires might use in ordinary conversation. We're looking for a few, well crafted emoticons in small size and larger display size.

Description

User Considerations:

• vampires are real, having coming out of the coffin in 2006;
• vampires drink TruBlood, the product featured on the HBO show;
• vampires vary in age from teenager to ancient (think centuries); 
• vampires are social with tribes, territory, and "bloodlines". 
• vampires, like Skype, are global with social connections that cross national borders.

Emoticons used for feelings are typically derived from the smiley face.

Potential emoticons from our Thursday brainstorming session (and we're open if you have other suggestions):

• Vampire, V''''V
• Thirsty
• Bite
• Smiley Fang
• Blood
• Garlic
• TruBlood bottle (first emoticon product placement, see http://www.trubeverage.com/)
• TruBlood Type O - hearty and satisfying
• TruBlood Type A - light and delicate
• TruBlood Type B - aggressive and energizing
• TruBlood Type AB - smooth and refined
• Plasma (weak blood)
• Stake
• Holy Water (H2O with a halo)
• Sunrise (when we go to sleep)
• Sun Glasses
• Sun Block (SPF-1000)
• Toothbrush, dental floss
• Sunset (when we get up)
• Sire (the vampire that brought you over)
• vampire, Vampiir (eesti spelling) ,veripard, vere-imeja
• Coffin/Sleep

What I Want

• Be consistent with our Skype emoticon library(http://www.skype.com/allfeatures/emoticons/), not Yahoo!'s or Microsoft's or QQ's. 
• Files for each emoticon, on white background
• Skype's emoticon size is 19x19px.
• Bonus points if you have time or imagination for animated versions for one or more. 
• Character. This is for the everyday use by millions of people, so it better have heart. A bleeding, pulsing heart. Have fun, show the gist.
• Gender Balance.

What I Don't Want

• Too cute. Put on your Skype design hat; you don't want to belittle or offend our vampire customers or employees. 

Prior art:

• A Yahoo! style emoticon.
  
• 3-D treatments
   

tags: skype, emoticons, s4v, skypeforvampires, design, ui, ue, ux, smileys, trublood, trueblood, bloodtype, branding

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Wishlist: sharable emoticon sets

Clearly we need larger, more varied, more topic-specific visual vocabularies. James Bridle is a visual guy and I'm sure he could have come up with emoticons specific to cowboy romance cinema. The better to share stories with friends.

For me, I sooo want a bunch of Jewish emoticons, like: 

(borscht)
(bagel)
(matzoh)
(2candles)
(feh)
(oy)
(minyan)
(lox)
(kvel)
(tzitzit)
(dancingchasid)
(chelm)
(kosher)
(treif)
(bris)
(guilt)
(crushingglass)
(daven)
(dreydl)
(megillah)
(lchaim)
(shofar)

These have meaning for me, are part of my social vocabulary. Glad to provide translations if anyone cares.

But this list is specific to me and my tribe.

It would be enormous fun to have additional emoticon sets to freely, easily and safely share and trade. If you don't have a set, you see the text. If you do, you see the art. Inherently viral, social, meaningful.

And fun.

tags: skype, wishlist, emoticons

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excellent

I think there should be an e-motion on my cell and skype which displays Mr. Burns with hands clasped together every time I type "excellent"

- Ben Ross

tags: skype, twitter, emoticons, emotions, the simpsons, mr. burns, excellent

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edicy: the Skype-friendly web site builder

Fraktal design/engineering studio built the new Edicy service, a free web site builder. Some of the Skype alumni:

• Toivo Annus is a co-founder, working on strategy, and remains a partner at Ambient Sound Investments. Paste (toivo) into a Skype chat to see a an emoticon in his honor.

• Märt Kelder is a co-founder, manages product and engineering management.

• Andres Sehr is marketing and promoting Edicy.

• Martti Ilves leads quality assurance. 

Brought to you from Tartu (city of good thoughts), Estonia.

P.S. Send Skype alumni news to tips@skypejournal.com.

tags: skype, alumni, people, fraktal, edicy, tartu, ee, estonia

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update 1. Added Martti Ilves.

Weekend reading

Skype for email? - can the p2p architecture that works for Skype be applied to email?

Skype Emoticons Club - drawing tool for emoticon art.

Evoca drops free service. For an annual fee, add Evoca to a Skype conference call and it will record the call, up to 180 minutes. You can download the mp3 or order transcripts.

C-SPAN reporters used Skype video to cover spots in and around the Pepsi Center at the Democratic National Convention this week. Jerky video (low frame rate) but added coverage.

Skype alumni are funding Inkspin1, bringing Skype calls onto your home television screen. Hat tip to Ray Crowley.

Skype turning off Skypecasts 1 September 2008. Fantastic long comment list. And a follow up from Skype.

tags: skype, news, roundup, evoca, linkspin1, skypecasts, emoticons, emoticon, emoticonart

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