Waterloo region is brimming with exciting companies making a name for themselves in the tech scene. Kik, a company founded by a group of Waterloo students determined to shift the center of computing from the PC to the phone, is no exception. They have made a huge splash in the messaging scene and their attention to design is a big part of that success.

At Kik, design is paramount — not just to the product design cycle but through all aspects of the user experience. Designers have a hand in marketing and brand activities, too. And you have to know that it's working when over 150 million users have already hopped on board the KiK platform.

We couldn’t be more thrilled that this UX loving company sponsored Fluxible again this year. The Kik team is another example of how strong the UX community is here in the region and it makes us so proud!

We recently messaged with Heather Galt, head of marketing at Kik, to get the scoop on all the fun stuff that's happening there these days.

Tell us a little bit about what Kik's been working on recently

Emojis have been widely embraced in mainstream messaging, but we got to thinking: what if emojis of kitties, poop, and smiley faces just don’t speak your language?

The Noun Project, a community that is building a visual language of icons anyone can understand, wanted to give their members the ability to create their own universal visual shorthand and communicate in their own visual voice. To do so, they partnered with us, one of the top messaging platforms, to host an “Emoji for Everyone” collaborative collection. The emojis uploaded to the collection will be available for anyone to use, and some will even end up on Kik’s messenger for our 150M users to share and enjoy! And since the designers retain all rights to their work, the Noun Project design community gets the benefit of profit-sharing anytime anyone purchases their emoji. The collection has no end date, allowing for infinite possibilities of open source emoji to be added to the world’s visual language.

We can't wait to see how users will get inspired by the sets of fuzzies, modern moods, and grimaces the Noun Project team has created!

Why did Kik choose to sponsor Fluxible again this year?

Design is SUPER important to Kik, and we put a huge focus on that in our app and everything we do at Kik. We love being part of the bigger design community, which is exactly why we sponsor Fluxible and why we're so excited about the Noun Project.

And we're so excited about Kik sponsoring us again. Thank you for your support... and congratulations on the Noun Project collaboration!