emoodicon

Emoodicon nail art seen at BlogHer 2008

Wow, this is cool! GwendoMama showed up at Blogher this week with a Bleep the Robot Emoodicon painted on her big toe.

Emoodicons as social commentary

Derek E. Baird of Barking Robot wrote us up in a nice blog post yesterday: Emoodicon: Come On Get Happy!

Back in the 1970s, the Boomer's went wild for their mood rings. Now their spawn, those totally wired Gen Y kids, are going wild for their version of the mood ring—Emoodicon.

This is a nifty way for the lol, omg, kthksbye, twitter, texting, blogging, loving kids to share their emotional state when they are away from the computer. You know. Outside.

Derek is a technology consultant and author specializing in social media, youth marketing, educational media and online communities, so it makes sense that he'd take a deeper look at the implications of offline emoticon use… My favorite bit of his post was this:

It's also an interesting social commentary, showing the depth of the love affair that kids today have with technology. Using symbols from the keyboard and online world to communicate their true feelings.

I usually try to work a few levels of depth into any artwork I do… There needs to be something basic, direct and exciting that everyone sees right off the bat, but I think it's important to have something built in that rewards the person who takes time to look at art critically too. Derek nails the ironic value, but I think his post also suggests one of the more interesting ideas I was going for with Emoodicon: the notion that by playing with the ring, you can actually get a better grasp on how you are feeling.

It's a way of being conscious about your emotions by specifically choosing how you want to represent them. Can a toy lead to greater self-awareness? Absolutely. Can Emoodicons help teens navigate through all the emotional upheaval of growing towards adulthood? Why Not? Maybe Emoodicons can even help parents to understand what their kids are feeling… Now that would be an amazing feat for a piece of jewelry, wouldn't it?

Print quality images for the press

The images below link to print quality pictures from our first photo shoot. If you use them in a magazine or newspaper article, we'd really like to have a copy for our archive. Please send to:

Emoodicon, LLC
3014 S. M 66 Hwy
Mancelona, MI 49659

If you are looking for a high res version of other images you see on the website, please email us from  our Media Inquiries page. Include the URL of the page where you saw it and a quick description of the image in question and we'll do our best to get it to you (some images on the site only exist in screen resolution).

click thumbnail to download print quality image. Publication rights require artist attribution  and inclusion of URL (www.emoodicon.com).

Tee Shirts and more featuring Bleep the Robot

Maybe you like people to know what mood you're in from a distance…If you're at DEFCON 4, an early warning system could give people a heads up. After all, a ring is kinda intimate. People have to get well within your space to read it, and by then it might be TOO LATE. A sandwich board sign would do the job, but they're so uncomfortable and bullhorns aren't practical in every setting.

Which is why our Bleep the Robot Emoodicons are now available on 62 flavors of apparel and gear from CafePress!

We'll be adding the Kitteh set of Emoodicons and some new designs as they come in from our amazing illustrator, Sheharzad. I've embedded a few examples below but to see the whole range of Bleep Wear, visit our Apparel Store in the menu or click here. Just click any image in the store to apply the design of your choice to a multitude of shirts, bags, mugs etc. CafePress guarantees 100% secure ordering and offers a 30-day money back guarantee on all products.

B.L. Ochman Loves Emoodicon

B.L. wrote a nice plug for Emoodicons on her What'sNextBlog, when she got one of the first rings we sent out. I should have mentioned it here sooner…

Thanks, B.L.!

Dawn's LOL entry to the Make a Face Contest

Dawn sent in this photo for our Make A Face Contest.

Thanks, Dawn! This is her portrayal of LOL (laugh out loud). Hey, when I saw it, I actually laughed out loud, so I think Dawn's on the right track. I wonder what she was laughing about when the shot was snapped?

If you'd like to enter a photo for a chance to win an Emoodicon Ring, you can do so here. And be sure to tell all your friends to come vote for your entry using the star rating widget!

Free Twitter Background Featuring Kitteh Emoodicons

I was doing a quick search for my name on Tweetscan yesterday and noticed the following two tweets:

Marisa: omg where did @johntunger get his wallpaper? I love it ~
Maia Bittner: @mari_posa I'm guessing @johntunger got his wallpaper from here: http://emoodicon.com

So it occurred to me that I should share my twitter wallpaper! I hadn't really thought of giving it away until I saw people asking about it.

Click one of the images below to download a copy which you can use on your own Twitter page if you like. If you need instructions on how to add it to your twitter page, you can find them here.

I'm posting two versions… One with a logo and one without. It'd be nice if people used the logo version just so that people can see where you got it, but I'd be happy to have people enjoy either version.

I'll do a set with Bleep the Robot if anyone leaves a comment requesting it.

 

Free Emoodicons for your blog! An emoticon script and graphics

Well, I'm just tickled that this works and I can share it with you! My friend Neil has come up with a nifty piece of JavaScript that you can use to put Emoodicons into your blog or website to signify your mood. So now, you can use Emoodicons in your ring or online. How cool is that?

This should work on pretty much any blog platform where you can use JavaScript and I've come up with some CSS you can edit to style it so it looks just right on your site. It works best if you put the Emoodicons at the bottom of your post, but you can play with the CSS if you want to make it fit in anywhere.

The instructions and all the code you need are in the extended post, so just click the link below to copy and install the code. I've set it up so that you don't need to host the images themselves… They're linked to in the script and you can feel free to use my bandwidth for the images.

Here's an example of how the Emoodicons look (you can change the wording, size, color and font of the text):

I need suggestions for a one line description of Emoodicon

I'm trying to come up with a quick, easy, one line way to describe the rings. A headline. Something that gets across the idea that they let you display your mood in real life the same as you would by using emoticons online but with more exciting language. It's harder than it sounds.

Here's a few of the attempts so far:

• Blog bling for the real world
• First there was the mood ring, now there's the 'tude ring - brings your online emoticons to your real life
• Set your to mood display in the real world
• Show them how you really feel!
• Share your mood with your world

None of those quite does it for me… I kinda like the first one, but since emoticons are used all over the web and not just on blogs, it falls a little bit short.

Does anyone have a suggestion? Hit me with it in the comments!

We've got the goods! Unboxing photos of the rings and inserts

The inserts and the rings have arrived and they're ready to ship! Awesome!

I haven't seen them yet because they went to Chris, but he says they look even more stellar than he ever imagined they would. The photos in this post are from his phone, so they aren't the greatest, but we'll have some professional pics soon that show how gorgeous the rings really are.

The insert sheets are perfect… great printing, perfect edges for the Emoodicons thanks to the laser cutting, and a surprise bonus: the sheets come covered with a plastic film like what you see on a brand new Iphone screen so they won't get scratched. Chris says the only way he can describe the depth and richness of the black in the printing is to compare it to the obelisk in 2001. Nice!

The rings themselves are even prettier than the prototypes we got (which were stunning!). The factory even changed the design a bit to make the caps come off more easily, in fewer turns! This was based on our request, but we didn't think it would happen until the second order… They totally surprised us by figuring out how to fix it and getting it into the pipeline early. Nice job guys!

So, we're ready for orders and we can send out some rings to a few friends who've helped make the dream real. I can't wait!

Here's some pics of how the rings looked when they arrived: