Eleanor—Jayne Browne | MVC 2 Major Course 2015—16 | Designer As Entrepreneur 3

Like other messaging apps, Line is spending money to transform itself into a “lifestyle platform” filled with features like grocery deliveries and music streaming, with the hope thatoffering a wide range of services will keep users engaged after the novelty of free texting and voice calls wears off. However, this messaging app’s main sources of revenue are still sticker packs and games— its Creators Market, which lets third—party designers upload and sell stickers, made USD 75 million during its first year in business. According to figures the company released for its 4th anniversary, up to 2.4 billion stickers and emojis are sent each day by its users. Almost half, or 48%, express happiness, but the rest reflect emotions ranging from sadness (10%) to anger (6%) and surprise (5%). Interestingly,many characters originally designed as creators’ stickers have received merchandising and publishing deals, and gone on to collaborate with other corporations, proving that the sticker—based platform has become an incubator for creativity and nurturing new ideas.

Line records which stickers get used the most often, but not how recipients react to them— this presents a challenge, but also gives designers more freedom; and additionally, the company doesn’t have a specific demographic in mind when creating new packs (when Line first launched, the majority of its users were female high school students).

Backed up with painstaking research of the languages, customs and even slang used in varying markets, Line'sdesign team creates a wide variety ofexperiences for global users; eg.American users prefer stickers that leave no space for misinterpretation, so characters have “wide” smiles and stickers are often accompanied by captions like “Awesome!” and “Great job!”

And, for Islamic cultures, the Line team gleaned that a major messaging opportunity exists around Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting. Therefore the team designed stickers of Brown the Bear breaking the fast and exchanging good wishes with Cony the Rabbit.

In short, the Line platform undeniablyfacilitates a deeper, richer way of self—expression and though stickers are an extension of the content—sharing trend prevalent across all online portals and social networks, they are also anexample of how “tech” companies can influence and reinforce cultural trends.

M O R E T H A NJ U S T A

C O M M U N I C AT I O N T O O L

Line Creators Market

The Land of Serge, Line Stickers

Festive Ramadan Days, Line Stickers

Line Conversation

Eleanor—Jayne Browne | MVC 2 Major Course 2015—16 | Designer As Entrepreneur Brief 4

If a “picture” is worth 1,000 words, what's the value of a sticker?Throughout history, every form of communication has developed its own shorthand. Northern Renaissance paintings were rich in symbolism— even the most mundane detail, like a vase, was a rich allegory. Victorians folded the corners of their calling cards to express sentiments ranging from congratulations to condolences and wireless telegraphists developed a system of coded slang to save their hands from the dreaded “morse finger.”

S**t H A P P E N S

In a text conversation, stickers are bids for effortless connection. They make it easy to express feelings you can’t (and probably sometimes shouldn’t) spell out in words.

Many users of messaging apps such asWhatsApp have switched to Line largely in large part to their selectionof stickers and emojis which like symbols in Renaissance paintings, express a wide, complex, and often bemusing array of ideas and emotions—and though many of Line’s stickers are sweet and innocent, some are exaggeratedly violent and crazy—there is a limit though to the kinds of situations that Line can show, however, and it varies from region to region, for example, in countries where there is a large Muslim population, Line doesn’t sell stickers showing drunk characters.

Emoji, stickers and much more will evolve and continue to spread through all aspects of our digital lives as they support our complex human communication needs and, in a worldwhere time is money, why bother wasting time by typing a reply when you can send faster, more expressiveemojis or stickers in seconds?

D E S I G N B R I E FBased on an original story create a set characters suitable for application as stickers to be used for the messaging app Line.

Stage 1—Create 3* written stories outlining 3*unique scenarios.

Stage 2—Generate a new visual language withwhich to illustrate your story.

Stage 3—Extract elements to create a set 0f 24+ (max 40) characters suitable for application as stickers to be used for Line.

Create stickers that are—(a) easy to use in daily conversation and communication(b) consist of easily understandable expressions, messages and illustrations

also note that non—recommended stickers are those which—(a) are difficult to use in daily conversation, such as objects/scenery(b) are not illustrated pictures, suchas photos(c) have poor visibility, such as pictures that are too long or full—length or include tall characters(d) significantly lack variety, such as stickers made up purely of pale colours (e) offend public order and morality, are suggestive of under—age drinking or smoking, contain sexual or violent imagery, or may fuel nationalism.

T H E B U S I N E S SO F S T I C K E R S

L I N E C R E AT O R S M A R K E T