The Emoji Designer Who's Bringing African Culture To Smartphone Keyboards
O'Plerou Grebet, a graphic design student from Ivory Coast, created over 360 emojis depicting different facets of African life, from the djembe drum to a henna-dyed hand.
O'Plerou Grebet is a 22-year-old graphic design student in Ivory Coast. Everywhere he looks, he sees signs of Western influence — from the glass skyscrapers and malls lining the streets in his home city of Abidjan to the way his peers spoke and dressed.
"We are living like we're Western people," he says. "It's like we are not proud of our own culture."
