The heart shape has been used as a symbol for a long time in typography. It has been included in many different sets of characters and codes, such as Unicode. Some characters show the heart shape clearly, while others represent it in a different way.
History
In the 1990s, NTT DoCoMo created a pager designed for teenagers. This pager was the first of its kind to allow users to send a pictogram along with text. The device only had one pictogram option, which was a heart symbol. This is believed to be Shigetaka Kurita’s first experience with using digital symbols in text. The pager received very good reviews in Asia, encouraging other companies in the region to consider adding pictograms to their text characters. Later, NTT DoCoMo released another pager for business users but removed the heart pictogram. After its release, many users complained about the missing symbol, and some switched to other providers that still included the heart. This led NTT DoCoMo to add the heart pictogram back to their devices.
As emojis became more widely used, Unicode introduced other heart colors. Each heart color has since been assigned a specific meaning. In early 2022, news outlets in the Middle East reported that sending a Red Heart emoji on WhatsApp in Saudi Arabia could be considered harassment. If someone was found guilty, they could face a maximum prison sentence of two years.
Notable characters
The red heart (❤️) emoji is a symbol used in messages to show care and love. It is often chosen as the most popular emoji in surveys by NTT DoCoMo.
The Heart Eyes (😍) emoji is used to show happiness about something. According to the Unicode Consortium, it was the third most used emoji in 2019, after the Red Heart and Face with Tears of Joy emojis. It often appears in lists of the most common emojis.
Unicode 6.0 used black and white images, so it showed yellow and other colors with patterns. When creating the yellow heart emoji ⟨💛⟩, Google misunderstood the dots in Unicode’s images ⟨ ⟩ and displayed the emoji as a pink "hairy heart" in version 4.4 KitKat. This mistake was corrected in version 4.4.1 a few months later.
Ideographic scripts
Some writing systems use pictures of hearts as symbols. Examples include:
- U+2F3C KANGXI RADICAL HEART ⼼
- U+5FC3 心 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-5FC3 心
- U+13123 EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPH F034 𓄣
Encoding
A common symbol for a heart is <3. In text format, several heart symbols are available:
In Code page 437, the original character set of the IBM PC, the number 3 (hexadecimal 03) represents the heart suit symbol. This number is also used for the non-printing ETX control character, which often replaces the heart symbol in many situations.
List of heart-related emojis
Heart-shaped emojis that are made up of a single Unicode character are located in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs, Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs, and Symbols and Pictographs Extended-A groups.