Emojis have become an integral part of our digital lives. They are used to convey emotions and add a human touch to our messages, posts, and content. As an iOS developer, you may want to create your own custom emojis to enhance the user experience of your app or website. In this article, we will provide you with a comprehensive guide on how to create emojis on iOS 18, covering all the steps you need to follow, from creating the design to submitting it to Apple.

Creating Emoji Designs

Before you start designing your emoji, you need to understand the technical specifications of the emoji format. An emoji is a Unicode character that represents an image or icon. To create an emoji, you need to design the image and encode it using a specific format. There are two main formats for encoding emojis: PNG and JPEG.

PNG Format

The PNG format is widely used for creating emojis because it supports transparency and allows you to save the image with a small file size. To create an emoji in PNG format, follow these steps:

1. Open a graphics editor like Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, or Sketch.
2. Create a new document with the desired dimensions (usually 14×14 pixels for standard emojis).
3. Design your emoji image using the tools available in the graphics editor. You can use colors, shapes, and other elements to create your design.
4. Save the image as a PNG file with the name “emoji_name.png”. The name should be descriptive and include keywords related to your emoji’s meaning.
5. Encode the PNG image using Base64 encoding. This will convert the image data into a string that can be embedded in Unicode characters. You can use an online tool like Base64-Image to encode your image.

JPEG Format

The JPEG format is another option for creating emojis, but it is less commonly used because it does not support transparency and can result in larger file sizes. To create an emoji in JPEG format, follow these steps:

6. Open a graphics editor like Adobe Photoshop, GIMP, or Sketch.
7. Create a new document with the desired dimensions (usually 14×14 pixels for standard emojis).
8. Design your emoji image using the tools available in the graphics editor. You can use colors, shapes, and other elements to create your design.
9. Save the image as a JPEG file with the name “emoji_name.jpeg”. The name should be descriptive and include keywords related to your emoji’s meaning.
10. Encode the JPEG image using Base64 encoding, similar to PNG format.

Submitting Emojis to Apple

Once you have designed your emoji, you need to submit it to Apple for approval. Apple has strict guidelines for submitting emojis, so it is important to follow them closely to ensure that your emoji is approved. To submit an emoji to Apple, follow these steps:

10. Create a developer account on the Apple Developer portal if you don’t already have one.
11. Log in to the developer account and navigate to the “Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles” section.
12. Click on “Certificates” and then click “Create”.
13. Choose “iOS App Development” as the type of certificate and select “Distribution” as the distribution type.
14. Enter a name for your certificate and choose a location to save it. Make sure to remember this name and location because you will need them later.
15. Click “Create” to create the certificate.
16. Navigate to the “Identifiers” section and click “Create”.
17. Choose “App ID” as the type of identifier and enter a name for your app. Make sure to include your company’s bundle identifier in the app ID.
18. Click “Continue” and then click “Next”.
19. On the next page,