We already showed how you can make yourself into an emoji and now we’ve found you can create emoji graffiti too.

Before you ask, no we do not mean grabbing a can and spray painting the local park with your favourite smiley, rather we have been playing around with the AR app Mirage.

Mirage allows users to (legally) graffiti 3D emojis, texts, drawings, hashtags or animated GIFs to any location in the world. Simply take a picture of the object, building, or whatever you wish to use as your canvas and create your masterpiece. Once completed, all mirage users will be able to view your mirage through their phone for twenty-four hours before it disappears back into the ether.

All mirages also appear as glowing orbs on Google maps, helping to direct you to the virtual graffiti in your area. Hoping to help this secret world intertwine a bit more with reality, tapping on a mirage with a hashtag will also take you straight through to Twitter.

You certainly can’t quite produce anything that will rival Banksy, but it does a little extra curiosity and mystery to your day (even if you do just find a 3D emoji poo).

Just to make it more exclusive, Mirage is only available on iOS, so apologies to Android users, you will just have to remain locked out of this hidden world… at least for now.

The 17th of July marked World Emoji Day, a ‘celebration’ of the colourful instant messenger symbols that have taken the world by storm. There are currently 2,666 emojis on the official Unicode Standard list, which I can only assume is some kind of emoji dictionary. Like my work colleagues and my Facebook messenger obsessed mother, ‘emoji’ is swiftly becoming the language of choice when on social media or instant messaging (BBM anyone? Bebo?). But, is 2,666 really enough for the emoji obsessed world?

Step forward Sticky AI, an app that creates your own instant messenger stickers using your photos. After opening the app, you can either take a photo or import one from your photo library. Sticky AI will then cut out the background to leave just the people, which you can add a filter to or a text caption. Alternatively, you can take a burst of photos to create an animated sticker or GIF, depending on what your chosen messaging app supports. The finished article can be sent as an image in iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, WhatsApp or Telegram.

So, if the lack of emoji variety is getting you down, why not have a go at creating your own sticker alternatives? Sticky AI is available now on iOS, and due in “a week or two” on Android.

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