Microsoft makes its 3D emoji library available on GitHub and Figma

Microsoft is making almost all of its refreshed 3D emojis available to customers to build with and on by putting them on GitHub and Figma starting today, August 10. The emojis will be fully customizable through vector files and available across all frameworks, officials said. Microsoft is taking this step in the name of the “democratization of creator experiences.”

Microsoft is releasing 1,538 emoji under the MIT open-source license. There are three emoji that it isn’t including: Clippy and two emoji that include the Windows logo (a person at a computer and a video game controller).

Even though Microsoft says it is “open sourcing” its emoji, there’s no expectation that any emoji that users customize will be broadly available to Microsoft or the community. The reason: Microsoft is fully aligned with the Unicode set, so custom additions is a process that would need to be sorted out from a process standpoint.

Earlier this year, Microsoft announced a new Power Apps feature called Express Design, which allows developers to turn images, docs, Figma design files and PowerPoints into apps by using Microsoft cognitive AI tech to scan the inputs and produce working app controls backed with data storage. The company also is working on a Canva-like tool called Microsoft Designer, and an accompanying app called “Microsoft Create.”

Today’s blog post mentions that Express Design is just one of a number of “additional creator experiences,” with more rolling out this Fall. (Maybe that’s a hint about Designer and Create?)