&walsh creates hundreds of relatable emojis on designer struggles and working from home

hundreds of relatable emojis designed by new york city-based creative studio &walsh are now available to download, based on some of the shared experiences of those working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. the series of icons reflect the struggles of social distancing, the challenges of freelancing, and the misadventures of creative life in 2020 in a humorous manner. jessica walsh, creative director and founder of &walsh, hopes that the emojis and accompanying memes will help individuals express themselves more conveniently and creatively online at this time.

‘now more than ever we need more ways to express ourselves, since communication is all digital,’ tells jessica walsh. ‘we’re also all going through unique and difficult times in 2020 that call for new language. we hope these can provide some delight or comic relief to people’s day… or just make it a little easier to communicate how shitty you’re feeling!’

one set of emojis is catered towards graphic designers — featuring familiar interfaces and design tools — while a second set widely relates working from home and life this year. examples include humorous parodies of some popular adobe programs, some stay-at-home outfits, quarantine essentials, superhero nurses and many more.

the emojis are available on all platforms including slack, instagram, imessage and whatsapp. &walsh also plans to host a meme contest to see who can create the funniest memes based on ‘life right now’ using just the new emojis. start your emoji conversation by downloading them for yourself, here.

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project info: 

creative direction: jessica walsh
copywriting: stephanie halovanic, rachel denti, jessica walsh
production: allison raich
lead design: rachel denti
design: elinor o’brien, carlos bocai, giulia zoavo, jeremy rieger, kitron neuschatz, sebastian anastasiei, tina touli, yeji park, sasyk mihal, matt roop, danyang ma, julian williams, katyayani singh
animation: danae gosset, soomin jung, lucas luz, mikey kelly
photography: sarah hopp, arielle casale