Boxmoji: the trending new aesthetic
How boxes and emojis took over the Internet, and why it matters 🤯📦
Web3 has gone mainstream. Paul Krugman is hating on it, the mayor of New York City is getting paid in crypto, and even Walmart wants in on it. Creeping in with web3 is a new aesthetic I now see everywhere. You know what I’m talking about. But we don’t have a word for it yet, as far as I know. It’s boxes and emojis. Let’s call it boxmoji.
In case you don’t believe me, here are a few examples of boxmoji. I first noticed it in web3, but it is spreading to more and more places, from newsletters to productivity apps.
useWeb3, a web3 overview site, is the most extreme example I’ve found, the perfect expression of the new style:
Lumen Finance, a cryptocurrency finance app, is big on the thick boxes and rigid shadows:
Buildspace, a web3 education platform, is awash with emojis, and even their emojis have thick outlines:
The two key design features of Boxmoji are:
- Emojis, emojis everywhere. Emojis on buttons, on menus, on welcome messages. Heck, emojis as buttons and menus.
- Thicker black outlines on cards, buttons, and even in emojis themselves (meta boxmoji 🤯)
I inspected useWeb3 and found blocks.css, the ideal CSS library if you want to try out this new aesthetic in your own projects.
Beyond web3, this design language is starting to seep elsewhere. Some sites use emojis, some use think lines, some do both.
Figma is so good at design that of course they won’t get left behind. Their new FigJam feature integrates boxmoji-like black outlines that break with their older UI:
Of course, TikTok won’t get left behind either, it’s too in tune with the new. Witness the emoji flood of their onboarding site:
Notion uses it too. In fact, it might be a driving force behind the adoption of boxmoji, since it’s so easy to add emojis everywhere:
Why does any of this matter? 🔎🤔 (yes, I use boxmoji too)
Who cares what web3 sites are doing with their designs? It matters because it says something about our cultural moment.
Web design is the new outlet for human fashion and style swings. A few centuries ago architecture would swing from stoic Renaissance classical revival to extravagant Baroque back to stoic neoclassicism and then extravagant neogothic in response. Now architecture has stabilized. A few decades ago we swung back and forth between skinny jeans and baggy jeans, or skinny ties and wide ties. Now fashion has stabilized. Web design remains an outlet. We will swing back and forth between flat buttons and outlined buttons until we find a new medium (AR? Our own CRISPR-enhanced bodies?).
A few years ago, in the heady web2 days of the mid-2010s, many websites transitioned to flatter designs, simple colors, no serifs. Google revamped its disarmingly nerdy old logo. In this AirBnB UX timeline, you can see the outlines disappear, the boxes become simpler, the buttons flatter. I would not be surprised if it soon starts adding outlines to its buttons and photos again, just like in the early days.
Just like the neoclassical architects, we seek to revive something that was lost. We react in response to prevailing aesthetics. The flat colors, no outlines, and fullwidth photos of the 2010s now feel too adult for a new decade that has become all too dreary in its headlines. We want playfulness and whimsy, and a certain simplicity. The retro return to nerdy, boxy, early Internet aesthetics gives us just that. “Yes, I know this looks silly. But I want to be silly!”
Why is this aesthetic dominating web3 in particular? 🔗
It makes sense that web3 originated this new aesthetic. It looks casual, even when it is carefully calculated. It captures the refreshing air that web3 brings to tech thought. The thick outlines feel like what you’re told not to do in UX. You’re breaking the rules. You are rebelling against the polished titans of tech and finance. Of course, this hides the fact that all of this is extremely serious, with real money and massive investments.
Like Google with its original silly-nerdy serifed logo, web3 people want to avoid being seen as evil. Emojis are a way to do this 😁 “Hey, I’m approachable, just like your friends in your text message groups.” Maybe emojis and thick lines help others overcome their fear of joining web3, of adopting new tools, and facing a learning curve. This could be why web3 educational platforms like Buildspace lean into boxmoji so much. In that case, great.
I hope that we also work hard at making web3 approachable in other ways.
✌🖥🗒
