Shigetaka Kurita (栗田 穣崇, born May 9, 1972, Gifu Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese interface designer often cited for his early work with emoji sets.
[5][6] He was part of the team that created one of the first emojis used solely for communication, a heart-shaped pictogram that appeared on an NTT DoCoMo pager aimed at teenagers.
The NTT DoCoMo emoji set he created is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.
It wasn't until telecom companies began experimenting with the use of graphic images or pictograms in messaging facilities that the emoji concept became a working idea.
The pager received rave reviews in Asia which led to other companies in the region to consider using pictograms in the list of text characters.
[8] In interviews, Kurita said this experience left him and others at NTT DoCoMo knowing that symbols had to be part of future texting services.
[14][15][16][7] Kurita's designs are held in the collection of the M+ museum in Hong Kong, and were included in the 2018 exhibition Being Modern: MoMA in Paris at the Fondation Louis Vuitton.