Emoticons, also known as smileys, are used to convey emotion in your writing. They are a great way to use text in an otherwise flat email. Emoticons can also show when you are teasing versus being serious.

Making emoticons is as simple as typing anything else on your keyboard. Look down there at your fingers, find the characters, press and release. It's not the act of typing emoticons which is difficult, of course. It's knowing which characters to type in order to be understood.

Some emoticons, like the basic smile face, have developed several different versions over the years. Some have a nose and some are shortened to a two character smiley, no nose included. (The nose has become optional).

Text-Based Emoticons

`😀 Smiley face

😎 Cool

|-O Yawn

=D Laughing out loud

-( Annoyed

X-( Angry

X-P Joking

😉 Winking

=) Happy face

%-) Confused

8-O Shocked

) Evil

O:) Angel

8-# Zombie

@>_; A rose

%%- Good luck

</3 Broken heart

😍 Heart `

Using Emoticons for Online Chat

Online chat uses text emoticons and turns them into graphics. I find people who ask about how to make emoticons are not actually talking about making emoticons, but these graphics.

Although they are based on the original text emoticons they display as graphics. Each chat (Yahoo, MSN, etc.) uses different emoticons and graphics. However, the basic smiley is still a smiley whether it comes with a big mouth, red cheeks or not.

Text art includes: ASCII art, ANSI art, typographic art, typewriter art, emoticons and Twitter art. They are all based on keyboard characters, more or less.

Text art includes more than ASCII art. But, ASCII art will come up first and be the largest part of the search results when you look up text art online.

The Text Mode blog on Tumblr has a mix of text art forms and techniques. It’s worth looking through the current posts and the archives too. There’s also a Pinterest account.

On Flickr I found a Text group with all kinds of art involving text. Another group for Text as Art.

What is Text Art?

ASCII Art

ASCII artists use the standard keyboard characters (if you have to use more than the shift key to type them they are not ASCII art characters) to create pictures (images/ graphics). This means artists who use more than the standard ASCII art characters are creating ANSI art.

ANSI Art

Artists have more flexibility with ANSI art because there are a variety of extended characters and colours which give far more options than ASCII art. It’s funny how ASCII art is still hanging around and is better known than ANSI art.

Typewriter Art

Typewriter art is easy to understand. Take away the computer keyboard and put an old fashioned typewriter down in front of yourself instead. Use the typewriter ribbon to add more effects to the art you create. You can smudge the ink, for instance. You can also hold the paper as you type and move it where you want to type, exactly. This means you can type one character halfway over another – easily done with the old typewriter.

Twitter Text Art

Twitter text art is a version of ANSI art. But, like Japanese ASCII art, it is dependent on which computer, software and operating system you are using. Not all keyboards, systems and languages work alike. These differences bring variety to ASCII/ ANSI text art and this difference is also use for creating text art which works on Twitter.

Emoticons/ Smileys

Emoticons are another simple form of text art, easily explained. You may have seen them as smileys/ smilies. Text art created to show expression and mood in the flat communication of email and online forums and chats. The basic emoticon, with the nose in the middle. Confused or don’t see the face? Then tip your head to the left and use some imagination.

Typographic Text Art

Last of all are the typographic text art. These can have a variety of styles. But, they are all formed from text (assorted fonts) and created in a graphics program, like Gimp. Typographic art is the closest thing to being a cross over between ASCII/ ANSI art and typewriter art. If more artists got into this and really thought about how far it can be taken we would have some very creative and unique graphic arts text art.

I Make my own ASCII Art. So Can You.

Start by looking down at your keyboard. The typical keyboard has every character (letter and punctuation mark) that you need to make your own ASCII art. Anything not already on that keyboard is not used for ASCII art. If you use extra characters you’re making ANSI art.

Always work in a font which is a fixed width. Notepad, the Windows defaul text editor runs on a fixed width font. I always use a basic, simple text editor when I’m making ASCII art. Even now using Linux, there is a plain text editor.

First, decide what you actually want to create. I like to have a sketch I’ve done myself or find some clip art online to guide me while I work. Whatever works to give a plan, a simple outline – it does help.

Use your own keyboard as an aid to figuring out what will work for the shapes you need for your design/ picture. If you work on something small you’re going to need to be pretty specific with the shapes you pick. So, try something a litle larger in size. This gives you leeway to create shapes with several characters rather than just one. (This will make more sense once you are actually started).

When you’re pretty happy with your creation, don’t forget the final touch – your artist initials! Mine are ldb.

You Can Get Fancy with Your ASCII Art

Add colour, make it bigger, change the whole style of it even.

Change to another fixed width font and you can alter the look of your ASCII art. I prefer FixedSys font but it’s not available with every text editor. Try other fonts, like Consolas and Dark Courier. Some of them will give you thinner lines. Some will use shorter lines. You can see the difference a font makes in the Canadian flag illustration.

Use an HTML editor to resize your ASCII art and add colour to it. This even lets you change the background dark and your ASCII art can be light on the dark. You will need a screen capture software to save your image from the HTML editor screen. You can try various other options but this is what I’ve found works best for me.

I use Kompzer as an HTML editor (it runs with Linux).

Now Put your ASCII Art on Your Blog/ Site

I’ve seen people post guides to making ASCII art. Most of them have never actually made any ASCII art. They may have used software to create something, but that’s not the same. It isn’t hard to make ASCII art, don’t cop out with software. Try DIY first. Of course, you won’t be an expert on your first try – so try again and then take some time away from it and come back for another try on the same image/ picture.

Look at tutorials and guides, look at ASCII art created by other people, keep trying it.

Put your creations up online. Let other people see them. Chances are they will be far less hard on your work than you will yourself.

Try formatting the ASCII art but if that isn’t working just turn it into an image file and post it like any other jpg, gif or png file.

Making ASCII Art with Fixed Width, Sans-Serif Fonts.

I've been making ASCII art since 1998. I'm a great fan of the FixedSys font. It is a monospace font which works very well for illustrating with text. The individual characters are plain and straight up and down, without many flourishes. (Plain fonts, without flourishes are called sans-serif). FixedSys is also a text which displays on the dark side. This is nice compared to some monospace fonts which give a very light, thin display.

However, Windows Vista was the first new computer I bought where I noticed the FixedSys font is missing. I looked for it, tried other font options, but was not really happy. So I went online to see what people were writing about it.

I now know that FixedSys has been given an upgrade of sorts and is now known as Consolas. I found Consolas and gave it a try. It is nice, smoother than the old FixedSys. But, I am a bit of a traditionalist, loyal to whatever I liked first.

While searching I found the font called FixedSys Excelsior. It is like the old fashioned FixedSys but it is less smooth than the new Consolas font. You can see a pretty drastic difference in the two fonts when I show them in an ASCII art illustration of the Canadian flag.

Monospaced Fonts to Try

• FixedSys Excelsior
• Fixed-width fonts
• Consolas -- FontZone
• DejaVu Fonts
• fixedsys: true type font
• Basic > Fixed width fonts | dafont.com
• Anonymous(tm)
• Coding Horror: Progamming Fonts
• Font Squirrel | Free Font Inconsolata by Raph Levien
• Inconsolata
• ProTEXT -- Dark Courier Download as a TTF File
• Dark Courier True Type Font -- HP Business Support Center

Most ASCII artists will tag their ASCII creation with their initials. This is not just about signing your art, it shows who created the art – the original artist. If someone else colours the art, or modifies it in any other way, the artist initials need to be kept with it. Anyone modifying art can add their initials and a note about what they had done to the original art. Include a link to where you found the art, if not a link to the original artist themselves.

This is what the Respect ASCII Artist’s Campaign is about. The ASCII art is available to be enjoyed, used and shared. But, give respect to the original artist and leave their initials on the work.