Heart shape, why this special shape can express love? Does it have anything to do with the human heart🫀? Do you know the history of the heart emoji, and its design changes in each platform?......

Speaking of the love-related emoji, the red heart emoji can be said the most widely used emoji to express this emotion and the most recognized symbol in modern digital communication. As the most classic heart emoji, you can use this emoji to show your straightforward love, affection or support to the one you care about. It is used widely between romantic relationship💏, family👪 and friends🧑‍🤝‍🧑.

So, on this Valentine, let's talk about this love-expressed shape and its emoji version!

The history of the heart shape

There are many possible origins of the heart shape: some people believed that the shape was used to represent the fruit of the silphium, or the heart shape was inspired by a human's buttock.

As early as the Indus Valley civilization, a gold heart-shaped pendant originating from there has been discovered. But at that time, this special shape did not stand for human 'heart', but represented the leaves of ivy, which symbolized fidelity.

With time passing by, the heart symbol as we know it today has developed in medieval art and literature, where it was used to represent the seat of the emotions and the soul.

The heart shape was further popularized during the Renaissance, when it became a common element in paintings and literature. During this time, the symbol was used to express love and affection in a variety of contexts, from romantic love to familial love, and even to express love for God and the saints.

🔺Augustine of Hippo holding a heart in his hand which is set alight by a ray emanating from divine Truth (Veritas), painting by Philippe de Champaigne, c. 1650.

The history of the heart emoji

As for the heart emoji we are familiar with, its origins can be traced back to the early days of digital communication and its evolution reflects the changing landscape of how people communicate and express themselves online.

The first heart symbol was created as part of the standardized set of digital characters known as Unicode. The Unicode Consortium is an organization that sets standards for text encoding, and in 1993 it released version 1.1 of the Unicode Standard, which included the first heart symbol (❤️).

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the heart symbol started to appear in the form of [<3], to express love or affection. Especially in1995, NTT put a heart-representing pattern [♥] on its pager📟 and led NTT's market share to rise to 40%

With the development of the emoji, of course the design of heart-shape emoji also had some changes over time. Here we take Softbank, the company that first released emoji set, and the platforms that we are familiar with (Apple, Google & Microsoft), their heart emojis as examples.

And as time goes by, Unicode released more and more color variants of the heart emoji, such as 💛🧡💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍, there are even new heart emojis 🩷(pink heart),🩵(light blue heart) and 🩶(grey heart) will be released in 2023! We have explained the meaning of each color heart emojis in detail in our blog: '❤Be Cautious Of The Heart Emoji Color You Send!', be careful not to use them wrongly🤔.

The development of the heart shape

In recent years, the heart emoji has become even more ubiquitous, appearing not just in text messages and social media posts but also in advertising, branding, and popular culture.

It has become a staple of digital communication and is used by people of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds. It has become a universal symbol that transcends language and cultural boundaries, and its popularity shows no signs of slowing down.

In conclusion, from its origins as a simple digital character to its current status as a ubiquitous symbol of love and affection, the heart emoji has become a fundamental part of the way we communicate and express ourselves online. We also look forward to what other developments and changes that heart shape will have in the future.


It's Valentine's Day soon, and on this special day, EmojiAll wishes all of you love, joy, and happiness. We also have emoji topic that is related to Valentine's day, all the heart emojis are in this topic!

Happy Valentine's Day!

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