The Emoji Christmas calendar illustrates Finnish emotions
Today Finland is the first country in the world to publish its own set of country themed emojis. The Finland emojis illustrate Finnish emotions and strengths, as well as vices, and are part of the Christmas calendar published by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on ThisisFINLAND, the country brand website.
All the emojis are available to download for free on Android devices from the Google Play store and later this month they will be available for iOS devices from the App Store. The emojis can also be downloaded for all devices as images from the Christmas calendar site xmas.finland.fi. In addition, the emojis are featured in the following third party applications: iMoji, Jongla, Futurefly and gotIT.
Even though the entire collection of 29 emojis will be available for download at once, the Christmas calendar will provide a short representation of each of the emoji backgrounds every day. At the end of the month a final special, 30th emoji will be published as a New Year’s gift. The emoji calendar can be followed at xmas.finland.fi and the social media channels of ThisisFINLAND (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).
For a foreign audience the Finnish state of mind might not open up with the images alone. One of the emojis needing an explanation might be a Michelin-man-looking-child, whose tongue has stuck on a metal pole. The feeling of “Stuck” is familiar to every Finn.
“Of course one can ask, if it is possible to find specifically Finnish emotions in this multicultural world. We noted that stereotypes and simplifying cannot be avoided, but with a tongue-in-cheek approach we can handle our strengths and even our vices,” says Petra Theman, Director for Public Diplomacy.
Some of the emotions are represented by an internationally known Finn. One of them is the Nobel Peace Prize winner, the former President of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari. The peacemaker emoji can continue in the web world the celebrated mediation that Martti Ahtisaari is doing.
“We thought that the emojis are a small gift from Finland to everyone. We are very grateful for the amazing global attention our emojis have had and we are also very honoured that many Finns find that the earlier published emojis and their subjects actually work,” Petra Theman says.
The emojis are designed by Art Director Bruno Leo Ribeiro. ThisisFINLAND’s Christmas calendar will be available in 13 different languages. In addition to the usual ThisisFINLAND languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, German, French, Portuguese), the emoji calendar will be published in Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Hindi, Polish and Turkish.
ThisisFINLAND is produced by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and is published by Finland Promotion Board. Finland Promotion Board gathers together organizations working with the country image of Finland and draws up yearly priorities for that work.
Inquiries: Petra Theman, Director for Public Diplomacy, tel. +358 295 351 558.