What Styles and Formats Does OpenMoji Offer?

OpenMoji ships every emoji in two visual styles — colored and outlined — and both follow one shared style guide, so they look consistent when mixed in the same interface. The set covers 4,495 emojis aligned with Unicode Emoji v17.0, including 270 flags, Fitzpatrick skin tone support, and special interest categories that go beyond the standard Unicode set. All of it is free to use under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Two styles: colored and outlined

OpenMoji's core format choice is between two renderings of the same emoji:

• Colored — full-color versions suited to UI, slides, and general illustration work.
• Outlined — line-art versions suited to wireframes, print, monochrome layouts, or places where color would clash with a brand palette.

Because both styles come from the same design system, you can switch between them without the set looking like two different libraries. The project describes this as a single style guide that all emojis follow so they "fit perfectly together."

Why the consistency matters

Mixing emojis from different vendors (Apple, Google, Twitter) usually produces visible mismatches in stroke weight, perspective, and color temperature. OpenMoji's single style guide is aimed at avoiding that — useful when you need a coherent row of icons rather than a patchwork.

Coverage and variants

Skin tones

OpenMoji supports the Fitzpatrick skin tone scale and multiple skin tone combinations, so emojis involving people or hands can be adapted rather than used in a single default tone.

Flags

The 270 flags range from national flags (Andorra to Zimbabwe) to non-standard ones such as Pirates — a sign that the set treats flags as a broader category than country codes alone.

Special interest categories

Beyond standard Unicode, OpenMoji includes special interest categories, with technologies and design called out specifically. These are emojis that don't exist in the official Unicode set but are useful for technical or design-oriented contexts.

License and use

All emojis are free to use under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. In practice that means:

• You can use them commercially and non-commercially.
• You must give attribution.
• If you remix or build on them, derivative works must carry the same license.

If your project can't accommodate share-alike terms, that condition — not the price — is the constraint to check before adopting the set.

Who it's for

OpenMoji is described as an open source project by 80+ students and 2 professors of the HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd plus external contributors, aimed at "designers, developers and everyone else." The two-style system and the extra categories are the main reasons to pick it over a default platform emoji font: you get a consistent, customizable set rather than whatever your OS renders.

To browse the actual emojis, use the collection on openmoji.org; the site also notes you can try OpenMoji on your phone.