Color Swatch emojis

[Crissov]

Note: This is a more focused spinoff or subset of the discussion about colored/material hearts #222.

The human eye and brain can distinguish thousands if not millions of colors, but in language, we regularly only refer to a very small and thus crude subset, which depends on the domain, of course. There is only a handful of canonical color names that are used in common parlance and several dozen color designations that one would roughly understand in a special setting.

Text is predominantly monochrome, i.e. a single foreground or ink color and a single background or canvas color. Colorful characters – like emojis usually are – has been used throughout history if and where possible, though. There are some (compatibility) emojis that could be reused as color swatches, but no shape (heart, square, diamond, circle, book) already has enough variations. Some of them also do not have good monochromatic fallback. There are some existing characters, however, that are not yet emojis, but could work as conventional representations of colors in B&W text: hatching squares.

There are various conventions to match colors (or surface materials) with hatching patterns, but the one originating from European heraldry is probably best known and most suitable. There are existing characters for, at least, blue, red, green, purple, black and white swatches, which would just require an emoji presentation variation selector U+FE0F (VS-16) appended. This would be recorded in emoji-variation-sequences.txt and could be done without waiting for an update to the Unicode Standard, since such emoji data is governed by UTS51. There was already a proposal to Unicode to add additional pattern squares, which would be introduced in a future release of the Unicode Standard (i.e. 11.0 in June 2018 or later).

Color	Tincture	Pattern	Sample	Description
black	ink	■ U+25A0		filled, solid, opaque, foreground
white = silver	argent	□ U+25A1?
white	canvas	▢ U+25A2?		none, blank, empty, transparent, background
?	?	▣ U+25A3		(filled square inside empty square)
blue	azure	▤ U+25A4		-- horizontal stripes
red	gules	▥ U+25A5		|| vertical stripes
black	sable	▦ U+25A6		++ square pattern, orthogonal crosshatch
(lime) green	vert	▧ U+25A7		\\ forward diagonals
purple	purpure	▨ U+25A8		// backward diagonals
reddish purple	murrey	▩ U+25A9		/\ diagonal crosshatch
dark-gray = iron, steel	—	▩ U+25A9 (X+2BxE)		XX diamond pattern (German)
yellow = gold	or	X+2Bx0		.. dotted
dark red (maroon/pink)	sanguine	X+2Bx1		-\ horizontal-forward crosshatch
orange-tawny	tenné	X+2Bx2		-/ horizontal-backward crosshatch
brown	brunâtre	X+2Bx3		|\ vertical-forward crosshatch
grey	fey	X+2Bx4		|/ vertical-backward crosshatch (English)
(alternate) blood red (pink)	(sanguine)	X+2Bx4		|/ vertical-backward crosshatch (German)
flesh, skin	carnation	X+2Bx7		| vertical dashed
ash-gray	cendrée	X+2Bx8		|- alternating dashed
sky-blue	bleu-céleste	X+2Bx9		-. horizontal dash-dotted (Spanish: green)
orange	—	X+2BxA		! vertical dash-dotted
(alternate) green	(vert)	X+2BxB		.-. dotted horizontal stripes (Spanish)
(alternate) orange-tawny	(tenné)	X+2By1		.|. dotted vertical stripes (English)

Michael Everson's proposal from April 2011 had new Square With ... Fill characters at U+2B60..2B71. These codepoints have since been delegated to some arrows. The block Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows U+2Bxy still has some other unassigned slots that could be used instead, e.g. U+2BD2..2BEB or U+2BF0..2BFF.

• X+2Bx0 .. or, gold, yellow SQUARE WITH DOTTED FILL (en)
• X+2Bx1 -\ sanguine, dark red SQUARE WITH HORIZONTAL AND UPPER LEFT TO LOWER RIGHT FILL (en)
• X+2Bx2 -/ tenné, orange-tawny SQUARE WITH HORIZONTAL AND UPPER RIGHT TO LOWER LEFT FILL (en)
• X+2Bx3 |\ maroon, brown SQUARE WITH VERTICAL AND UPPER LEFT TO LOWER RIGHT FILL (en+de)
• X+2Bx4 |/ fey, grey; blood red SQUARE WITH VERTICAL AND UPPER RIGHT TO LOWER LEFT FILL (en; de)
• X+2Bx5 +\ earth SQUARE WITH ORTHOGONAL CROSSHATCH AND UPPER LEFT TO LOWER RIGHT FILL (de)
• X+2Bx6 - water SQUARE WITH OFFSET HORIZONTAL LINE FILL (de)
• X+2Bx7 | flesh SQUARE WITH OFFSET VERTICAL LINE FILL (de)
• X+2Bx8 -|- cendrée, ashen grey SQUARE WITH ALTERNATING VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL FILL (en+de)
• X+2Bx9 -. green SQUARE WITH HORIZONTAL LINE AND DOT FILL (es)
• X+2BxA |. orange SQUARE WITH VERTICAL LINE AND DOT FILL (en)
• X+2BxB .-. green SQUARE WITH ALTERNATING HORIZONTAL LINE AND DOT FILL (es)
• X+2BxC L natural, proper SQUARE WITH UPPER LEFT TO LOWER RIGHT STEPPED FILL (de)
• X+2BxD J natural, proper SQUARE WITH UPPER RIGHT TO LOWER LEFT STEPPED FILL (cz)
• X+2BxE + steel SQUARE WITH CROSS FILL (it)
• X+2BxF x sanguine, dark red SQUARE WITH X FILL (it)
• X+2By0 ( natural, proper SQUARE WITH SEMI-CIRCLE FILL (it)
• X+2By1 .|. tenné, orange-tawny SQUARE WITH ALTERNATING VERTICAL LINE AND DOT FILL (en)

The 16 original CGA / VGA / HTML3.2 / CSS1 colors come in light/dark = high/low pairs:

Generalization	Light	Dark	Hue
light	□️ white	▢️ silver	—
dark	▦️ (ash) gray	■️ black	—
monochrome	□️ white	■️ black	—
gray	▢️ silver	▦️ (ash) gray	—
red	▥️ (rose) red	▩️ maroon	0°
orange/brown	� yellow	� olive	60°
green	▧️ lime	� (grass) green	120°
cyan	� aqua	� teal	180°
blue	▤️ (cornflower) blue	� navy	240°
magenta/pink	� fuchsia	▨️ purple	300°

Once agreed upon (and added) as emojis, these color swatches could be used in Emoji ZWJ Sequences to designate the predominant color(s) of the emoji that precedes them. This could be a hair color, car paint, nail polish, blossom color, nib ink, symbol tint etc. Any frequent combination would be documented in emoji-zwj-sequences.txt. (Skin complexion is already dealt with by dedicated combining Emoji Modifier characters U+1F3FA..F that are based upon the Fitzpatrick scale, but combine its first two values into one. If added, X+2Bx7 carnation might need to become an Emoji Modifier Base.)

For UTC150 in November 2016, @pauldhunt (unsuccessfully) proposed 10 new characters for color swatches in L2/16-318, which map to U+25A5 ▥, U+2BxA, U+2Bx0, U+25A7 ▧, U+25A4 ▤, U+25A8 ▨, U+25A1 □, U+25A6 ▦, U+25A9 ▩/2BxE/2Bx8 and U+2Bx3 above:

• RED
• ORANGE
• YELLOW
• GREEN
• BLUE
• PURPLE
• WHITE (may potentially use WHITE LARGE SQUARE, U+2B1C)
• BLACK (may potentially use BLACK LARGE SQUARE, U+2B1B)
• GREY
• BROWN

Proposals

• L2/11-094
• L2/16-318

Standard References

• Unicode Technical Standard 51 “Unicode Emoji”
• How to propose emojis to Unicode
• Unicode document submission form

[Crissov]

DIN 30601:1971 (now withdrawn) offered a more systematic approach for additive colors with lines for red, dashes for green and dots for blue. Hatchings of composite colors would use combinations of these basic patterns. They intentionally deviate from heraldic customs to ensure independence of drawing orientation. Black and White would be fully filled and completely blank, respectively.

[Crissov]

Henrik Theiling made an artificial writing system for the constructed language Toki Pona by Sonja Elen Kisa, which uses some of the patterned squares for different colors:

Char	Codepoint	Color
■	U+25A0	black
▤	U+25A4	red
▥	U+25A5	yellow, light green
▦	U+25A6	blue-green, cyan
▧	U+25A7	colorful
☐	U+2610	white

Michael Everson submitted an updated proposal, published as L2/17-394 in the Unicode document repository. The number of proposed characters and their suggested codepoints have changed:

• X+1F7D9 (X+2B7A) SQUARE WITH ALTERNATING VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL LINE AND DOT FILL

  • used in English heraldic hatching for orange

  • The name did not match the sample glyph in the proposal.
• X+1F7DA (X+2B70) SQUARE WITH DOTTED FILL

  • used in English heraldic hatching for Or or gold or yellow

• X+1F7DB (X+2B79) SQUARE WITH HORIZONTAL LINE AND DOT FILL

  • used in English heraldic hatching for bleu celeste or light blue

• X+1F7DC (X+2B77) SQUARE WITH OFFSET VERTICAL LINE FILL

  • used in German heraldic hatching for carnation

• X+1F7DD (X+2B73?) SQUARE WITH VERTICAL AND UPPER LEFT TO LOWER RIGHT FILL or SQUARE WITH HORIZONTAL AND UPPER RIGHT TO LOWER LEFT FILL

  • used in English heraldic hatching for tenné or tawny light brown

  • The reference image (~ former X+2B72 for tenny and X+2B71 for brown), sample graphic (X+2B73) and character name (X+2B74) do not match in the proposal. Hatching pattern usage for brownish (and some other) tinctures was inconsistent across Europe.
• X+1F7DE (X+2B78) SQUARE WITH ALTERNATING HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL LINE FILL

  • used in German heraldic hatching for ashen grey

  • cendrée

[Crissov]

David P. Kendal and for 12 emoji color modifiers in L2/17-355.

• red
• orange
• yellow
• green
• dark blue
• light blue
• pink
• purple
• brown
• black
• grey
• white

This set was apparently identified by Berlin and Kay in a linguistic study.

[Crissov]

Emoji 12.0 (2019) will add several colored hearts, squares and circles to complete the following set of color swatches:

• 🖤⚫⬛ Black
• 🤍⚪⬜ White
• 💜🟣🟪 Purple
• ❤🔴🟥 Red
• 🤎🟤🟫 Brown
• 🧡🟠🟧 Orange
• 💛🟡🟨 Yellow
• 💚🟢🟩 Green
• 💙🔵🟦 Blue

There are still some missing, at least:

• Pink
• Gray
• Blue variant (Cyan or Navy or both)
• Red variant (Dark, Maroon, Blood)

For consistency, they should also be added as Heart, Circle and Square.