Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 is…

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tears-of-joy-emoji

That’s right – for the first time ever, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year is a pictograph: 😂, officially called the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji, though you may know it by other names. There were other strong contenders from a range of fields, outlined below, but😂 was chosen as the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015.

How well do you know your emojis? Take this quiz.

Why was this chosen?

Emojis (the plural can be either emoji or emojis) have been around since the late 1990s, but 2015 saw their use, and use of the word emoji, increase hugely.

This year Oxford University Press have partnered with leading mobile technology businessSwiftKey to explore frequency and usage statistics for some of the most popular emoji across the world, and 😂 was chosen because it was the most used emoji globally in 2015. SwiftKey identified that 😂 made up 20% of all the emojis used in the UK in 2015, and 17% of those in the US: a sharp rise from 4% and 9% respectively in 2014. The word emoji has seen a similar surge: although it has been found in English since 1997, usage more than tripled in 2015 over the previous year according to data from the Oxford Dictionaries Corpus.

emoji frequency

What would emojis look like in real life? Watch the video.

A brief history of emoji

An emoji is ‘a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotion in electronic communication’; the term emoji is a loanword from Japanese, and comes from e ‘picture’ +moji ‘letter, character’. The similarity to the English word emoticon has helped its memorability and rise in use, though the resemblance is actually entirely coincidental:emoticon (a facial expression composed of keyboard characters, such as ;), rather than a stylized image) comes from the English words emotion and icon.

Emojis are no longer the preserve of texting teens – instead, they have been embraced as a nuanced form of expression, and one which can cross language barriers. Even Hillary Clinton solicited feedback in the form of emojis, and 😂 has had notable use from celebrities and brands alongside everyone else – and even appeared as the caption to the Vine which apparently kicked off the popularity of the term on fleek, which appears on our WOTY shortlist.

Newport’s Friars Walk shopping complex opens!

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Newport’s multi-million pound new shopping centre has opened, in what is seen as a landmark for the city centre’s regeneration.

Friars Walk has been years in the planning and the development ground to a halt in the 2008 financial crisis.

Now it is opening with Debenhams as its anchor store and retailers such as Marks and Spencer moving back.

Newport Council lent the developers £90m in a commercial deal to ensure the centre opened on time.

Council leader Bob Bright said there had been a renaissance over the last decade and people “underestimated Newport”.

As well as 30 new shops, there will be about a dozen restaurants and an eight-screen Cineworld multiplex cinema.

Welsh fashion designer Julien Macdonald opened the Debenhams store.

Newport council leader Bob Bright said the shopping complex was part of a renaissance. Newport Council borrowed £90m at a lower rate of interest and then lent it on to the developers in a “calculated risk” to ensure the project was built. “Everything in life is risky but we were at an impasse when the developer was unable to raise the funds in the money markets because of the interest rates,” said Mr Bright.

First Minister Carwyn Jones joins council leaders for the official opening.

The complex is estimated to create 1,200 jobs within its shops and restaurants.

 

First Minister Carwyn Jones joins council leaders for the official opening

It’s that time of year again… You Better Play That Sax!

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So now that the initial intro to winter festivities such as Halloween and Bonfire night are over… It’s now that time when we’re waiting on the Christmas songs to kick in on the radio and all of the superstore giants are strategically choosing their advertising agencies to generate the most compelling of Christmas TV advertising! I for one am a bit of a lover of adam&eveDDB agency and always keen for the songs that these advertising agencies deploy to each of their emotionally weighted adverts, to beat The Xfactor to No 1!

I’m super excited as I’m writing this because I just love this time of year! Not just for Christmas and all of the magic that happens, but because it’s a time where friends and family can get together and make memories. The kind of memories that these advertising agencies always portray to the best of their creative abilities each Christmas! However, let’s not forget that there are those less fortunate too that do not have the same spirit and cheer and I think this is where John Lewis position themselves this year with their eagerly awaited… ‘Man On The Moon’.

So here they are as we kick off the start of the countdown to the Christmas battle of the advertising agencies and superstore giants!

I for one.. Love, love, LOVE them!! Enjoy 🙂

 

Website Launch Celebration!

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A To A Design Consultancy are celebrating the launch of our new website! To mark the launch of our new website, we are also introducing training sessions to compliment all of our other services. With 2016 imminent, the focus of our our new training sessions are to provide you with the freshest of knowledge on how to be prepared by letting you in on new strategies and new ways to promote and sell your products and services in 2016.

We have already released our first training session date! We look forward to welcoming you and delivering some great new strategies for you to take away and apply. Be prepared for 2016!

 

Leading Provider To World’s Only Full-Service Energy Agency

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A To A Design Consultancy is excited to become the leading provider of SEO solutions to REFINED – The World’s Only Full-Service Energy Agency. Over the summer months of 2015 we have been tailoring a white label service for REFINED to take forward and fit seamlessly into their organisation. We look forward to a long and successful working relationship.

SLIDE – The Lexus hoverboard

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“There is no such thing as impossible, it’s just a matter of figuring out how.”

If it seems like months now that you’ve been seeing this hoverboard concept from Lexus, that’s because it has been.

Called “Slide,” it is a skateboard-like device that floats a few inches above the ground, promising the ultimate in futuristic, personal travel. To pull off this seemingly impossible feat, the thing contains a series of magnets and superconductors cooled by liquid nitrogen. The board is real, and it exists exclusively for the purpose of elevating the Lexus brand image.

The company first teased Slide back on June 23, and it was immediately dismissed as a fake and a marketing stunt. Lexus promised proof, and that proof is here.

The levitation effect of supercooled superconductors has been known for ages now, but deploying it on such a scale requires some serious effort. Namely: lots and lots and lots of magnets built into the ground. The company has built a custom skate park in Barcelona, Spain, upon which its prototype hoverboard can be used.

In fact, this board works only at that custom-crafted park, built at an undisclosed but surely huge expense. Still, it seems to have some limitations, with pro skateboarder Ross McGouran struggling to keep the thing from dragging on the ground at times. That’s despite liquid nitrogen refills every 10 minutes or so.

Still, an extremely super cool concept!