Heart emojis

[Crissov]

The Heart doesn’t look much like the human organ, but is a very popular symbol nevertheless. Some say the physical origins of the symbol are rather a buttocks or vulva/vagina. Unicode already has several color variants, but there is some demand for even more variety. For a Rainbow Heart see #173. An Orange Heart emoji is already accepted for Unicode 10 (June 2017).

Petitions

• Emoji Request
• Emoji Request
• Emoji Request
• Emoji Request
• Emoji Request

[Crissov]

Heraldic Colored and Patterned Hearts

Color	Tincture	Heart	Pattern	Sample	Description
White	argent	♡ (U+2661)	□ U+25A1		None, blank
Gray ≈ Stone	cendrée	—	—		Alternating dashed
Black	sable	🖤 U+1F5A4	▦ U+25A6		Square pattern, Orthogonal crosshatch
Black	—	♥ (U+2665)	■ U+25A0		Solid
Black	—	❤︎ (U+2764)	■ U+25A0		Solid
Red	gules	❤️ U+2764	▥ U+25A5		Vertical stripes
Maroon ≈ Pink	sanguine	💓 (U+1F493)	—		Horizontal-forward crosshatch
Maroon	murrey	💖 (U+1F496)	▩ U+25A9		Diamond pattern / Diagonal crosshatch
Purple	purpure	💜 U+1F49C	▨ U+25A8		Backward diagonals
Blue	azure	💙 U+1F499	▤ U+25A4		Horizontal stripes
Sky ≈ Ice	bleu-céleste / bleu de ciel	—	—		Horizontal dash-dotted
Green	vert	💚 U+1F49A	▧ U+25A7		Forward diagonals
Yellow = Gold	or	💛 U+1F49B	░ U+2591		Dotted (Light shade)
Skin	carnation	—	▒ (U+2592)		Vertical dashed (Medium shade)
Orange	—	🧡 U+1F9E1	▓ (U+2593)		Vertical dash-dotted (Dark shade)
Brown	tenné / brunâtre	💝 (U+1F49D)	—		Vertical-forward crosshatch
Iron	—	—	—

• There is no White Heart emoji, U+2661 and U+2665 are card suits.
• The Black Heart was added in Unicode 9.0 (2016), the Red Heart is solid (black) in text style (Heavy Black Heart).
• The Orange Heart will be added in Unicode 10.0 (2017).
• The Heart with Ribbon character U+1F49D 💝 resulted from unification of a Box of Chocolates emoji and a Chocolate Heart or Brown Heart emoji.
• This and other Heart emojis are nowadays usually rendered in pink which is not really the same color as maroon, but the Sparkling and Beating Hearts are shown here anyhow.

Historically, there have been alternate systems of heraldic hatching.

ISO 81714-2 section 6.9 defines and IEC 81714-2 Annex H shows example patterns for the “design of graphical symbols for use in the technical documentation of products”. Other technical drawing standards also cover many colors, materials and patterns. Some are based on and compatible with traditional heraldic patterns, e.g. German DIN 201 and ISO 128-50 section 5.

Hatching Pattern:	vertical	forward	vertical dashed	backward	horizontal	horizontal dashed	diamond grid	square grid
Heraldry:	gules	purpure	~carnation	vert	azure	~bleu-céleste	murrey	sable
English:	red	purple	~skin	green	blue	~sky-blue	maroon	black
US PTO:	red / pink	brown	violet / purple	green	blue	grey / silver	orange	yellow / gold
Compatibility:	✅	⚡️	⚡️	✅	✅	⚡️	⚡️	⚡️

Conclusion

The monochrome reference glyphs in the Unicode Standard, for Hearts and other colored emojis, should use a common hatching pattern system and the one established in (European) heraldry seems sufficient and appropriate. Only the Yellow Heart and Orange Heart reference glyphs currently agree with that, though. Adobe‘s Source Emoji typeface already does follow the heraldic convention.

[Crissov]

Linguistic Color Theory

Languages differ in which primary colors they distinguish at the native lexeme level, see WALS 132. It is usually 3 to 6 out of these primaries:

• White W
• ❤️ Red R
• 💛 Yellow Y
• 💚 Green G
• 💙 Blue Bu
• 🖤 Black Bk

Major composite terms are found for these:

• Green/Blue (“Grue”)
• Black/Green/Blue (“Cold” → Ice Heart)
• White/Red/Yellow (“Light”)
• Black/Blue (“Dark”)
• Red/Yellow (“Warm” → Fire Heart)
• Yellow/Green/Blue
• Yellow/Green (→ Heart Leaf? Lime Leaf/Heart? 🍃 🍂)
• (White/Yellow)

Then there are several derived (intersective) categories or mixtures:

• Gray = Black + White ( → Stone Heart?)
• Pink = White + Red
• 🧡 Orange = Yellow + Red
• 💜 Purple = Blue + Red
• (💝 Brown = Yellow + Black)

Conclusion

This calls for the further addition of a White Heart emoji and probably also explicitly Gray and Pink Hearts emojis and perhaps a Brown Heart emoji.

[Crissov]

Unicode Utilities: UnicodeSet “subhead = Heart symbol”

Google Hangouts / Android

Here’s Google’s infamous Hairy Heart in context. Also see the respective Android bug tracker issue. Images provided by Emojipedia, except final column directly taken from the Noto Emoji repository.

Color	Heart	Reference then	now	4.3	4.4	5.0/7.1	8.0
Black/Red	♥ (U+2665)
Red	❤️ U+2764
Purple	💜 U+1F49C
Blue	💙 U+1F499
Green	💚 U+1F49A
Yellow	💛 U+1F49B
—	💘 (U+1F498)
(Maroon ≈ Pink)	💓 (U+1F493)
(Maroon)	💖 (U+1F496)
(Brown)	💝 (U+1F49D)
(Transparent)	💟 (U+1F49F)

[Crissov]

Monochrome Fonts

Color	Heart	Reference	Android 4.3 (Noto)	Windows 8.1 (Segoe)	Emoji One	Adobe Source	Symbola
Black	🖤 U+1F5A4		—	—
Red	❤️ U+2764
Purple	💜 U+1F49C
Blue	💙 U+1F499
Green	💚 U+1F49A
Yellow	💛 U+1F49B
Orange	🧡 U+1F9E1		—	—	—

[Crissov]

Original Japanese Heart Emoji

NTT	SB	KDDI	Unicode	Name
			♥️ U+2665	Heart Suit
			❤️ U+2764	Red Heart
—			💙 U+1F499	Blue Heart
—			💚 U+1F49A	Green Heart
—			💛 U+1F49B	Yellow Heart
—			💜 U+1F49C	Purple Heart

NTT	SB	KDDI	Unicode	Name
			💓 U+1F493	Beating Heart
			💔 U+1F494	Broken Heart
	—		💕 U+1F495	Two Hearts
—			💖 U+1F496	Sparkling Heart
—			💗 U+1F497	Growing Heart
—			💘 U+1F498	Heart with Arrow
—			💝 U+1F49D	Heart with Ribbon
—	—	—	💞 U+1F49E	Revolving Hearts
—			💟 U+1F49F	Heart Decoration

NTT Docomo (i-mode)

http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/service/developer/make/content/pictograph/basic/images/{Decimal ID}.gif
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/service/developer/make/content/pictograph/extention/images/{Decimal ID − 300}.gif [sic!]

• Basic Index (ID≤300)
• Extension Index (ID>300)

Image	NTT ID	PUA	Unicode	Name
	80	E+68D	U+2665	Black Heart Suit
	136	E+6EC	U+2764	Red Heart
	137	E+6ED	U+1F493	Beating Heart
	138	E+6EE	U+1F494	Broken Heart
	139	E+6EF	U+1F495	Two Hearts

Softbank

http://creation.mb.softbank.jp/mc/tech/tech_pic/img/{uppercase Unicode PUA ID}_20.gif
http://creation.mb.softbank.jp/mc/tech/tech_pic/img/{uppercase Unicode PUA ID}_20_ani.gif

• Softbank/Apple U+E001–E05A
• Softbank/Apple U+E101–E15A
• Softbank/Apple U+E201–E253
• Softbank/Apple U+E301–E34D
• Softbank/Apple U+E401–E44C
• Softbank/Apple U+E501–E537

Image	PUA	Unicode	Name
	E+022	U+2764	Red Heart
	E+023	U+1F494	Broken Heart
	E+204	U+1F49F	Heart Decoration
	E+20C	U+2665	Black Heart Suit
	E+327	U+1F493	Beating Heart
	E+328	U+1F497	Growing Heart
	E+329	U+1F498	Heart with Arrow
	E+32A	U+1F499	Blue Heart
	E+32B	U+1F49A	Green Heart
	E+32C	U+1F49B	Yellow Heart
	E+32D	U+1F49C	Purple Heart
	E+437	U+1F49D/6	Heart with Ribbon / Sparkling Heart

KDDI (au), EZweb

http://mail.google.com/mail/e/ezweb_ne_jp/{uppercase E4U ID without leading ‘E’}
http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/hdml/emoji/e/{ID}.gif

Image	E4U ID	PUA	Unicode	Name
	B0C	E+022	U+2764	Red Heart
	B0D	E+327	U+1F493	Beating Heart
	B0E	E+023	U+1F494	Broken Heart
	B0F	E+6EF	U+1F495	Two Hearts
	B10	E+437	U+1F496	Sparkling Heart
	B11	E+328	U+1F497	Growing Heart
	B12	E+329	U+1F498	Heart with Arrow
	B13	E+32A	U+1F499	Blue Heart
	B14	E+32B	U+1F49A	Green Heart
	B15	E+32C	U+1F49B	Yellow Heart
	B16	E+32D	U+1F49C	Purple Heart
	B17	E+437	U+1F49D	Heart with Ribbon
	B19	E+204	U+1F49F	Heart Decoration
	B1A	E+20C	U+2665	Black Heart Suit

Observation

Red Heart has been unified with Pink Heart and disunified from Red Heart Suit.

[Crissov]

Colored Metals, Gemstones etc.

🎨 Tincture	⚗️ Metal	💎 Gemstone	🌐 Planet / 🏛 Roman deity	🏔 Greek deity	☁️ Germanic deity	📆 Day
💟 Argent	Ag Silver	Pearl	☽️ Moon / Luna	🐂🐓🐕🔦 Selene	🌝 Moon / Máni	Monday
❤️ Gules	Fe Iron	Ruby	♂️ Mars	⚔️🐕🐗 Ares	Tiw / Diu / Týr	Tuesday
💙 Azure	Sn Tin	Sapphire	♃️ Jupiter	🐢🐓👼 Hermes	Wotan / Odin	Wednesday
💜 Purpure	Hg Quicksilver	Amethyst	☿️ Mercury	⚡️🦅🐂 Zeus	Thor / Donar	Thursday
💚 Vert	Cu Copper	Emerald	♀️ Venus	🐬🕊🌹 Aphrodite	Freya / Frigg	Friday
🖤 Sable	Pb Lead	Diamond	♄️ Saturn	🐍🌾🎸 Kronos	—	Saturday
💛 Or	Au Gold	Topaz	☉️ Sun / Sol	🐎🐓🌻🚗 Helios	🌞 Sunna / Sól	Sunday

Conclusion

A White Heart is missing, since Heart Decoration is a bad substitute. (By this esoteric metric, an Orange Heart was not missing.)

[Crissov]

PS: Michael Everson submitted a formal Proposal to add heraldic hatching characters to the UCS (L2/11-094 = N4011) which failed back in 2011, i.e. there were neither more characters added nor the existing ones properly annotated.

N258A is also relevant in the context of hearts: it proposed combining heart characters.