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Yiying Lu

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Emoji designer
Yiying Lu
BornShanghai, China
EducationBachelor of Design from University of Technology Sydney
Occupation(s)Artist, designer
Known forCreating Twitter Fail Whale, co-creating the Dumpling emoji, and co-founding Emojination
Awards
  • Microsoft's "Top 10 Emerging Leader in Innovation"
  • 2008 Shorty Awards winner in Design
  • 2018 Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business
  • 2024 Pantone Spotlight Artist
Websitewww.yiyinglu.com

Yiying Lu is an artist most known for creating the 2008 Twitter Fail Whale, co-creating the dumpling emoji, and co-founding Emojination. She was born in Shanghai, China and earned her Bachelor of Design from University of Technology Sydney. She is based in San Francisco, California, US.

Career

Yiying Lu has been using art, design, and technology to unite people across language and cultural barriers. After earning her bachelor’s degree from University of Technology Sydney in 2008, Lu founded the Yiying Lu Studio.  

While earning her degree, Lu created a digital artwork titled "Lifting a Dreamer" to send birthday wishes to a friend living far away. Lu then posted the image, featuring a serene whale being lifted out of the water by eight orange birds, to a istockphoto.com, where Twitter co-founder Biz Stone discovered the image and thought it would make a good icon. In May of 2008 the image of a serene whale being lifted out of the water became the Twitter Fail Whale.

Due to the popularity of the fail whale, Conan O’Brien commissioned Conan O’Brien Pale Whale for Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco website and Twitter page. The image became popular on the internet, including a profile page and fan club for the fail whale. In July of 2008, Mashable held a competition for users to create an icon for Facebook based on the Fail Whale. Lu also created the Shorty Whale for the social media Shorty Awards, another outgrowth of the fail whale.

Her work bridging design and technology continued when in 2011 she created a set of illustrations of famous faces in fashion featuring QR codes.

In 2015 Lu co-founded the Dumpling Project and Emojination with Jennifer 8. Lee.  Between 2015 and 2020, Lu created six Unicode emojis now used by billions of people. These are the dumpling (🥟), boba tea (🧋), fortune cookie (🥠), chopsticks (🥢), takeout box (🥡), and peacock (🦚), representing sights, foods, beverages, images, and animals common in Asia and Asian American communities.

In 2016 she designed a version of Mickey Mouse for the inaugural recruitment campaign for Disney Shanghai Resort.

In 2024, Lu, Steve Sue, and Ryan Ozawa, submitted the shaka emoji (🤙) to the unicode Consortium to bolster the reach of the famous gesture from Hawaiian culture.

Lu's Disco Winter Wonder Land & Sea, featured at the 2024 San Francisco “Let’s Glow SF” public art exhibit featured was,"a playful and whimsical celebration of the winter holiday season and animal inhabitants from different continents." The piece included north pole animals such as the polar bear, red panda, koala, and whale shark to promote biological diversity and ocean conservation.

In 2024 Lu won the Pantone Spotlight Artist award and she said, "Color is my language, weaving bridges between hearts and minds, connecting individuals through shared emotions, and orchestrating a symphony of unity and understanding."

Yiying Lu is a San Francisco Arts Commissioner for visual arts. She is a frequent guest speaker and visiting lecturer. She has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, NBC News, TIME, Wired Magazine, The Verge, CNN, and the BBC.

Honors and awards

  • 2018 Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business Winner
  • 2008 1st Shorty Awards winner in Design
  • 2022 Australia China Alumni Award for the Arts and Creative Industries
  • 2024 Pantone Spotlight Artist

References

  1. Chicco, Gianfranco. "How Yiying Lu bridges art and technology across cultures with Adobe Illustrator on the iPad". blog.adobe.com. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  2. ^ Tan, Claudia (2021-08-02). "5Qs with Yiying Lu, Award-Winning Artist, Food Emoji Designer & TEDx Speaker". Singapore Global Network. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  3. ^ Lu, Yiying (2021-07-07). Yiying Lu: Empowering Through Cross-Cultural Design & Innovation, Talks at Google. Retrieved 2024-07-15 – via YouTube.
  4. ^ Luckerson, Victor (2013-11-06). "How Twitter Slayed the Fail Whale". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  5. "Web darling Conan rides the 'Pale Whale'". www.cnn.com. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  6. ^ Makice, Kevin (2009-03-24). Twitter API: Up and Running. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". ISBN 978-0-596-15461-5.
  7. "To celebrate 5 years of Shorty Awards, Yiying Lu presents us with a new mascot". Tumblr. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  8. Banks, Emily (2011-08-08). "QR Codes Used To Illustrate Fashion Icons [PICS]". Mashable. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  9. Kiaer, Jieun (2023-05-18). Emoji Speak: Communication and Behaviours on Social Media. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-350-13512-3.
  10. "Silicon Valley Is Forced to Reset Its Moral Compass for the Pandemic". Bloomberg.com. 2020-04-16. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  11. Harris, Jenn (2020-03-06). "A boba emoji is coming. Meet the woman who designed it". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  12. EIN Presswire (April 4, 2024). "Proposal for 'Shaka' Emoji Submitted to Bolster the Universal Reach of the Hawaii Hand Gesture". abc4.com. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  13. "Pupu Platter 388: Liquor commission takes hit, atmosphere gets bit, shaka emoji is lit". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  14. "Yiying Lu | Downtown San Francisco". downtownsf.org. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  15. Vang, Gia; Ni, Christine; Horn • •, Michael (2022-12-02). "Bay Area Artist to Be Featured in 'Let's Glow SF' Event". NBC Bay Area. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  16. ^ Pantone. "2024 Pantone Spotlight Artist Yiying Lu Bridges Cultures with Creativity and Pantone Connect". Pantone. Retrieved 2024-07-22.
  17. ^ "Yiying Lu | San Francisco". www.sf.gov. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  18. "The Most Creative People in Business 2018". Fast Company. 2018. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  19. "The 2008 Shorty Awards Winners and Finalists". Wayback Machine. Archived from the original on 2019-07-12. Retrieved 2024-08-13.
  20. "2022 Australia China Alumni Award for the Arts and Creative Industries – Australia China Alumni Awards". Retrieved 2024-07-22.

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