The creative and adventurous designers of Samsung Electronics have played an important role in discovering the needs of consumers and developing products they find truly meaningful.

For many designers, their personality can be seen in their workspaces. Wild or weird, cluttered or clean, the desks of Samsung’s designers showcase their unique personalities and provide insight into what inspires them. It’s that diversity of backgrounds, experiences and styles that creates strength and is a vital part of realizing meaningful design.

Which is why we made “Designer Desk”—presenting the desks of six Samsung designers, to provide a glimpse of the variety and inventiveness of the people who create our wide range of products.

Meet the Designer’s Desk

How can you really get to know a person? Look at their surroundings. People’s personalities tend to inadvertently show up in the things around them. The seemingly little things, like your music playlist, the books you read or what you do over the weekend, can tell the world a lot about the kind of person you are.

When we decided to introduce our designers here at Samsung Electronics, the first thing we thought of were their desks. What better way to showcase you their personalities than the place they display their personal belongings and spend the most time? So we sat down with each of our designers as they showed us their desks and shared their thoughts on design and the work that they do.

“My desk is a discount store display.”

Taewon Seok / Senior Designer / Mobile Communications Business

What’s your favorite item on your desk?

My origami Doberman Pinscher. I started making origami dogs after I saw a movie about Dobermans when I was young. Finding the unique characteristics of each kind of dog and translating those features into paper construction has many parallels to the design process.

In your opinion, what is the most important step of the design process?

A quick, often rough, sketch that really captures the essence of an idea. We tend to think a marker drawing or a detailed sketch meant for presentations shows the creative moment, but often that simple sketch is a doorway to so much possibility to develop your idea.

How would you define yourself as a designer?

I would say my approach to design is with irony and wit. My style is direct and my goal is to be memorable, like nice perfume.

“My desk is a place with flowers and plants to brighten your day.”

Eunyoung Choi / Assistant Designer / Visual Display Business

What’s your favorite item on your desk?

An empty perfume bottle I use to put flowers in. The bottle is curved, which I prefer to the straight lines of a normal perfume bottle. Some days there will be ranunculus, and other days, I’ll have pompom flowers that really brighten up my desk.

In your opinion, what is the most important step of the design process?

Ideation and brainstorming. While it’s important to make something pretty and stylish, coming up with a good idea takes hard work. In my opinion, a good idea ultimately yields good results.

How would you define yourself as a designer?

I think experiencing new things is important. I personally like to learn and feel new things. Accepting them, visualizing them and organizing them into something I could use later on in my work is what inspires me and my design.

“My desk is red leather.”

Jinhoo Lee / Senior Designer / Mobile Communications Business

What’s your favorite item on your desk?

My earphones. While they may look like hearing aids and not very high-end, the sound is impeccable. And because they fit inside your ear, they’re good for times when you want to avoid outside noise and really concentrate on your work.

In your opinion, what is the most important step of the design process?

I think the direction of the design and the core value comes out during the ideation stage. But really, every step along the way is equally important.

How would you define yourself as a designer?

Experiencing as many things and as much as you can. Nothing is more important than that.

“My desk is my comfort zone filled with things I love.”

Jungjoo Sohn / Designer / Corporate Design Center

What’s your favorite item on your desk?

LEGO IDEAS 21301 BIRDS. The fact that a bird lover developed this LEGO IDEAS series and that it’s so cute to look at makes it the most important thing on my desk!

In your opinion, what is the most important step of the design process?

Research and ideas. During this stage I really get my inspirational juices flowing. I find out about different worlds and experiences that add to the creativity of the project.

How would you define yourself as a designer?

I aspire to be a designer that makes something that gets better over time.

“My desk is a cafe with pictures and music.”

Jangwoon Kim / Designer / Mobile Communications Business

What’s your favorite item on your desk?

My Galaxy Note 10.1. Since I don’t always carry around pen and paper, the tablet really comes in handy. Whether it’s in meetings or on my day off, I always have it close by.

In your opinion, what is the most important step of the design process?

In school I thought it was having a good idea. Now, after working a bit, I realize that it’s the final attention to detail when complete the project or product that really makes the difference.

How would you define yourself as a designer?

Because I view being a designer as needing to understand the inner workings of a product or a project and not just the superficial details, I strive to meet and converse with professionals from diverse fields and backgrounds. If you lend an ear to what they’re saying you’ll gain valuable insight into what consumers need, if not society as a whole.

“My desk is a home for rest and comfort.”

Kaei Kim / Senior Designer / Corporate Design Center

What’s your favorite item on your desk?

Messages from my colleagues. When a project becomes difficult or we reach a standoff, the kind words of encouragement from my team members or others in the office often help me back on my feet so I can continue to trudge on.

In your opinion, what is the most important step of the design process?

Design research. It’s vital to find a basis for your design and to develop a goal for it. Research is fertilizing the seed of creativity for your design work.

How would you define yourself as a designer?

I’ve always wanted to move hearts with my design work. Finding out what exactly triggers such emotions and thoughts has been a recent pursuit of mine.

Different Designers Come Together for Meaningful Design

All the designers who agreed to show us their desk, their inner sanctum if you will, were a bit shy at first and reluctant to do so. Soon they opened up their workspaces, as well as their views on design with confidence and determination. While all of them have different goals and dreams, their willingness to design something meaningful unites them and pushes them forward.

A wide range of individuals from all walks of life come together to create, make and design. As Jangwoon mentioned during his interview, diverse backgrounds and experiences add to design insights. For us at Samsung Electronics, those insights are key. It is our drive to discover the needs of users and consumers – insights that are vital in realizing meaningful design.

It was around 2010 that Samsung began to actively design emojis specifically for the company’s mobile devices. Its more recent efforts have placed a greater emphasis on reflecting consumers’ evolving communication habits in its devices. The Galaxy S6 edge+, released in August, introduced an enhanced People edge, a device-exclusive function that enables users to send messages, emails and emojis. Likewise, the Gear S2 smartwatch gives consumers the option to reply to messages with emojis.

There’s an emoji to represent nearly any mood, product or activity one can think of. But more than just cute characters, this ever-expanding collection of ideograms has come to be one of the most widely used forms of communication throughout the world, surpassing both language and generational barriers. Restoring the facial expressions and body language that we make in person but not online, emojis are quickly transforming the way we as humans interact in a digital world that is becoming more and more emotionally expressive and visually driven. The impact is so far-reaching, in fact, that the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2015 is not a word at all—it’s Face with Tears of Joy, the most widely used emoji this year.

The History of the Emoji

The emoji was not born overnight. In fact, its predecessor, the emoticon, paved the way for its entry into the digital communication space. Scott Fahlman, a research professor at Carnegie Mellon University, was the first documented person to use the emoticons and in 1982, when he suggested that they be used to express emotion. Almost two decades later in 1999, Shigetaka Kurita, an employee at Japanese mobile service provider NTT DoCoMo, took the emoticon a step further. Inspired by Chinese characters and manga, Japanese comics, he developed the first emoji prototypes in an effort to deliver the most amount of information as possible in a limited screen space.

As the emoji quickly gained admiration across the globe, communications and technology companies began to develop their own designs. However, when users with differing devices attempted to send emojis to one another, the ideograms appeared as squares because they were not supported by the receiving devices’ operating systems. That’s when Unicode Consortium stepped in.

As the non-profit organization that develops and maintains one of the major international text standards in computing, the Unicode Consortium created a global standard for coding emojis across operating systems in 2010. Most recently, the consortium approved a number of new emojis and emoji modifiers as part of Unicode 8.0 earlier this June in response to the growing demand for more current designs. Now, even though these specific emojis look slightly different across platforms, they can still be easily understood by the receiving user, regardless of their device’s operating system.

Appealing to Everyone

With such developments taking place, Samsung’s UX design team works relentlessly to continuously expand their suite of 1,200-plus emojis, all the while conveying the company’s unique identity in a variety of facial expressions, animals, buildings and signs. And, while many apps, both paid and unpaid, also offer an eye-catching but limited selection of emojis, Samsung’s suite—which is designed entirely by the company itself—can be accessed directly from the device’s keyboard and used in all the device’s services and applications when a bit of variation is desired.

So what makes Samsung’s emojis different from the others?

“We place a great amount of focus on the actual design of the emojis to add a sense of fun to Samsung’s devices,” notes UX Designer Erin Jung. “One way we do that is by increasing the volume of the details. The smiling face, for example, may have larger eyes while the anxious-looking face might have a larger bead of sweat.”

These uniquely Samsung facial expressions typically transcend national, religious and political boundaries—a necessary component of the company’s designs. Even when the emojis introduce a style distinctive to Samsung, it is essential to create images that can be understood by millions of smartphone users around the globe, a fairly arduous task considering that many emojis aren’t always interpreted in the same way.

Another one of Samsung’s UX designers, July Baek, explains, “We are constantly conducting research during the design process to ensure that the emojis can be understood by all, regardless of nationality or age, while adhering to the global standards. Also, we have to keep up with current design trends.”

In addition to these obstacles, there are other limitations that make the design process challenging, like the amount of space the designers have to work with—a small square of 108 by 108 pixels. The limited area makes it particularly challenging when designing action emojis, which must be the same size of facial expressions but usually require more detail to properly illustrate the action. Moreover, creating a design that appeals to everyone is just as difficult.

“In the case of animals, the design cannot simply be cute or realistic,” says UX Designer Boeun Song. “Instead, we have to strike a fine balance between the two so that the final Samsung emoji designs will be admired as widely as possible.”

Users can utilize Samsung’s unique emoji suite by holding down the setting icon on the keyboard.

Getting Technical

Once a design is settled on, the designers work on individual graphics as they appear on actual screens. The designers must take into account how the emojis appear next to text and how the human eye perceives them.

“To eliminate the visual discomfort that can occur when two-dimensional and three-dimensional designs are placed next to one another, we unify the angles and directions of light, composition and shading for each emoji so that they can easily be browsed by users,” Jung elaborates.

Finally, the completed design is applied using the same type of code as the general font on the device so as to take up as little storage space as possible. In other words, the size of the emoji matches the size of the expressed font.

The designers hope to soon implement a technology that allows for the adjustment of the size of the emojis exposed on the screen so that the user’s message, intended emotion and tone of voice are more accurately conveyed. Additionally, they hope that consumers will enjoy Samsung’s unique emoji designs so much, it will inspire them to choose Samsung devices.

“We really like to people-watch. We look at people as they go about their daily lives and try to replicate their facial expressions and gestures in our emoji designs,” says UX Designer Baek. “Human expression has no limits, and we hope to continue to illustrate this through our work.”

The importance of the emoji to modern language is clear. It is a necessary solution for expressing emotion and conveying meaning in an era where written language is limited in doing so. And, just as language evolves over time, it is certain that the emoji will transform, too, further developing the way humanity connects and interacts.

(From left) UX Designer Boeun Song, Erin Jung and July Baek

A wise man once said: “Less is more”

To be totally immersed in virtual reality, one must leave the real world behind. For an optimal experience, there should be no reminders of the division between the two realities. That is why Samsung’s focus was to eliminate all unnecessary hindrances, in order to help feel totally immersed in the virtual world presented to them.

Naturally, simplicity was the top priority. Designing the interface proved to be very tricky. Though Samsung has a wealth of experience in designing all sorts of interfaces, they were usually on a 2D plane, had a defined screen and also a set of buttons that controlled functions. Gear VR, on the other hand, offers a perfect spherical 3D view (which is basically 360°-by-360°), and the user cannot see the buttons while they are using the device.

So Samsung designed the interface from the bottom up, putting in only what was necessary. In the menu, for example, everything is focused on the center while the rest falls back. Visual effects were minimized as well. When you start your Gear VR, you see available apps and content against a dark background. When you push play, you go straight to watching the video — no breath-taking animations.

Aside from the focus wheel and volume rocker, all controls were slimmed down to motion recognition, an intuitive track pad and a ‘back’ button. You look, scroll and tap – that’s it. There is no separate menu button: the universal menu can be called by holding the back button. The volume rocker is located on the right side and the focus wheel is on the top, out of your way. So once you’re all set up, all you have to worry about is jumping straight in.

Simplicity was also a key theme for the exterior design. A simple and futuristic black and white color scheme rules the identity — no fancy colors that scream out for attention. Other than the hatch, the focus wheel, back button and volume rocker are the only physical buttons you see. Even these are toned down to blend seamlessly with the rest of the body. You see one simple black-and-white goggle-type device, not a box with a million buttons.

Shedding and balancing weight

Because Samsung Gear VR is worn on your head, the “Less is more” approach also weighed heavily on the hardware itself. Apart from the Gear VR, you also need to support your Galaxy Note 4. So it needs to be as light as possible. The weight must be balanced so it doesn’t stress your neck, and it can’t put too much pressure on your face.

Materials were carefully selected to make the Gear VR as light as possible. And as the engineers pushed for even less weight, the designers dug out holes in places where it would not affect the durability of the product. Every gram, every milligram, mattered as it could mean another minute, another second of usage without fatigue.

The next step was to balance this weight. Samsung carefully studied the existing goggles and helmets made for various uses. A helmet would be too uncomfortable, not to mention, it would get too hot. Goggles would be unbalanced, sagging toward the front and as a result putting too much pressure on the facial contact areas.

So after careful consideration, numerous mock-ups, uncountable hours of working with the Gear VR on, the result was a goggle-type form factor with a strap on top. The strap proved to be a very efficient way to balance the weight and ease pressure, giving it a near perfect ergonomic design. The idea, of course, is to make the Gear VR so comfortable that users forget they are wearing it.

Another effort to ease the pressure against users’ faces was the high-quality foam cushioning, lined with suede. In terms of size and dimension, the cushioning was revised again and again to take into account the size and shape of people heads and faces across cultures and ages.

Gear VR was a first for Samsung and it’s still new to many. Pioneering unchartered territory never comes easy, but it has its rewards. What do you think of the Gear VR design? Share your thoughts in the comments below.