Skype emoticons

Above are some of the emoticons I created for the Skype chat client. They're designed in the Skype house style and have to read clearly at any size from 20x20px up to 160x160px.

(penguin) animation by Sam Cundall, (computerrage) animation assistance by Cako Facioli.

The core set of around 100 emoticons was designed by the great Jon Hicks. (Jon literally wrote the book on icon design.) My contribution to these was the animation, trying to bring an extra storytelling element to Jon's static designs where possible without detracting from the universality of the icon. (puke) is my favourite.

And (talking) is mouthing a phrase that I'm not sure anyone figured out yet.


Dunno if anyone uses Skype these days but the emoticons still live on in MS Teams, with a slightly less iOS6 look.

Client Skype

Additional credits Emoticon base set designer: Jon Hicks, Art director: Steve Pearce, Original 19px Skype emoticon set by Priidu Zilmer, Dance moves: Mark Lacroce