BETWEEN THE LINES

Each week, Bitstrips’s creative team launches some 15 to 20 new bitmoji designs. Here’s how it turns ideas into avatars.

Sketching the concepts

The content team bats around ideas for future bitmoji over Slack before picking six concepts, such as “Drive Safe” or “I Can’t Even,” to explore at the next Bitmojam session. During the twice-weekly brainstorms, illustrators armed with pens and index cards offer riffs on each message. The group then selects its favorites.

Finding an expression

The team uses a modified version of the Bitstrips comics builder to create a scene with a generic avatar. The program lets them choose from different eyebrow positions, eye shapes, tongue lengths, and more. Small facial tweaks can change the entire tone of the bitmoji from worried to inquisitive to elated.

Fine-tuning the design

Since users’ avatars can include hundreds of variations—including face shape, hairstyle, and body type—the Bitstrips team tries out potential bitmoji on test avatars to make sure they fit within the frame. Finally, they take out anything extraneous, winnowing the image down to its simplest iteration.