Loly Adds A Supersized Emoji Sparkle To Your iPhone

Move over boring old static smiley face and wine glass emoticons, Loly is a new, bigger, prettier emoji app now available on the App Store. Online fashion pioneer Gina Pell created the new app to fill a need for the “chic and stylish” to have a better way to express themselves.

Pell is the founder of early e-commerce fashion site Splendora. That got acquired by Joyus a few years back. Pell joined Joyus after the acquisition but left a couple years ago to take some time off. She likened the creation of Splendora to her new venture Loly and says she even sketched out all the emoji herself before handing it off to a design team. “Emoji and emoticons have been such a hot topic lately which is why I created something I thought was sorely missing in the market,” says Pell.

screen568x568

There are six distinct categories of emoji in Loly:

  1. Lips – These are all animated “blow me” type red lips that let you express with emoticons like “My Lips Are Sealed” or “Twerk It Lips.”
  2. Greetings – These are emoticons that are supersized play-on-words pictures such as a cartoon bomb to express to the sender that you think they are “the bomb.”
  3. Word Up – this category will let you choose words in typeset such as “BASIC” or “HOLLA.” Some are also gif animations of words that express laughter or “LOL.”
  4. Animated – This section will cost you 99 cents. You can get emoji gifs like “Felix the cat” or Pharrell’s hat.
  5. Love – Save this section for someone special. There are a lot of flowers, chocolates and an animated beating heart. This is section is also one of the paid sections. It costs 99 cents.
  6. Life – You’ll find some larger than life shades that say “cool” on the lenses and pair of heels with the letters “GNO” underneath in this section.

Screen Shot 2014-10-17 at 7.11.02 PM

Some of my faves are the blinged-out “Dope” emoticon and the one that has a picture of some tote bags that says “totes.” It’s just ridiculous enough to get a laugh from your friends.

Just like with regular emoji, you can also mix and match any of these to convey the exact phrase you are hoping to get across. Use the “lightening bulb” and then add the cheeseburger emoji to text your friend that you think the two of you should go grab a bite to eat, for instance.

It’s a crowded space, with hundreds of emoticon apps out there to choose from. But so far the app seems to be doing well with the Silicon Valley crowd. Everyone from Twitter co-founder Ev Williams to One Kings Lane’s Alison Pincus have said they use Loly. Pincus wrote in to TechCrunch that even her 70 year old aunt was getting a kick out of using it. “I especially love the more obscure emoji like an animated Gnome Chomsky that says ‘Question everything’,” added Gina Bianchini from MightyBell.

screen568x568-2On top of that, emoticon addiction is real, especially among the young (or young at heart). There’s no shortage of emoji over-users. Even Facebook has recognized the trend and has opened up more ways for us to use emoji to express ourselves in other areas. Those Facebook stickers are now available within comments, events, and groups as well as messages.

You can text, email, send a Loly on Facebook or copy it to send some other way. Loly is a stand alone app on the App Store for now but Pell tells us she is working on a keyboard version you’ll soon be able to integrate with your other keyboard settings. She’s also working on a “Let’s go Giants” emoticon for all you Giants fans out there.