- Apple’s running shoe emoji is based on a famous New Balance design
- An artist has turned this emoji into a real pair of sneakers
- You can buy them from the artist’s website for $219
All the best phones come with a bewildering array of different emoji – with new ones being added all the time – but they mostly stay confined to the digital realm. Now, though, one designer has turned Apple’s running shoe emoji into a real pair of kicks that you can purchase for yourself.
Artist Jose Wong took inspiration from Apple’s particular take on the running shoe emoji, using it to create a pair of sneakers available in sizes five to 12. The upper consists of full grain nubuck leather and mesh, with EVA foam and a polyurethane rim on the midsole and heel.
There’s five percent recycled rubber in the outsole, while the insoles are printed with a chipboard design inspired by iPhone circuitry and Apple silicon chips. The packaging the shoes will arrive in also takes its cues from Apple, with a plain white paper insert reading “Designed by Josewong in China.”
You can buy a pair of the sneakers from Wong’s ABCD brand shop, where they will set you back $219.90 (around £175 / AU$340). Even the product’s URL incorporates the sneaker emoji.
Why New Balance?
When new emoji get created and approved by the Unicode Consortium, operating system creators can interpret them in their own way. That’s why emoji can look slightly different across iOS and Android, and even on different apps like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more.
Apple’s version of the running shoe emoji – the one that inspired Jose Wong – is itself a reference to the New Balance sneakers worn by Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs.
The former Apple CEO was famous for his “uniform” consisting of a black turtleneck sweater, blue jeans, and New Balance 991 or 992 shoes. Interestingly, Apple’s sneaker emoji is actually based on the New Balance 574, albeit with some subtle changes (including to the logo), but the similarities to Jobs’ chosen footwear are striking.
If you love the iOS running shoe emoji and want a pair for yourself in the real world, Jose Wong’s creation might be appealing. It’s far from the only emoji to debut IRL – giant emoji plushies are common around the world – but it might be one of the more practical ones.