We all are familiar with emojis, even if we don’t all use them prolifically. 🥸

Who knew these little pictographs would be such an integral part of our communication in the 21st century? ❤️🧐

And while we throw them around with little effort, did you know there’s an official counsel that tracks and approves new emoji for the world to use? It’s called the Unicode Consortium.

Some people have gone the extra length to categorize these emoji, like Javier Bórquez, who has painstakingly mapped all common emoji into their proper scale, from the smallest (mosquito) 🦟 to the largest (Milky Way) 🌌.

It’s a fun project, and you can explore it on your own here. 👌🏽😍

Still from the emoji scale visualization showing animal emoji lined up by real-world sizeWide frame from the emoji to scale video comparing progressively larger emoji side by side

Emoji scale visualization still with large object emoji dwarfing smaller icons belowStill from the visualization comparing huge emoji like landmarks and vehicles at true scaleFinal still of the emoji scale video, cosmic emoji like the Milky Way at the largest end

Author

Ben VanderVeen is the founder and editor of Moss & Fog, one of the web’s longest-running visual culture destinations. Since 2009, he’s been finding and framing the most beautiful, surprising, and thought-provoking work in art, architecture, design, and nature — reaching over 325,000 readers each month. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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