Smiley Face

A circle. Two dots. A curved line. In ten minutes, Harvey Ball created what would become one of the most recognized symbols in human history—a design so simple that its power lies not in complexity, but in its universal ability to communicate joy.

The smiley face originated in 1963 when State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts faced a challenge that corporate America knows all too well: sagging employee morale following a difficult merger with Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). Company Vice President John Adam Jr. proposed a "friendship campaign," and Assistant Director of Sales and Marketing Joy Young was tasked with leading the project (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). Young requested that freelance artist Harvey Ball design "a little smile to be used on buttons, desk cards and posters" (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025).

Ball, who had established Harvey Ball Advertising in 1959 after returning from World War II service, approached the assignment with characteristic efficiency (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). His initial design featured a sunny yellow circle containing only a smile, but Ball realized this created a problem—it could be turned upside down to create a frown (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). By adding two simple oval eyes, with the right eye slightly larger than the left, he created an image that could only convey happiness. The entire design process took approximately ten minutes, and Ball was paid forty-five dollars for his work (CNBC, 2019; Wikipedia Contributors, 2025).

The company initially planned to distribute one hundred button pins to employees as part of their campaign to encourage smiling while using phones and performing other tasks (World Smile Day, n.d.). However, demand exploded almost immediately. By 1971, more than fifty million smiley face buttons had been sold, transforming Ball's simple design into what has been described as an international icon (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025).

The smiley's evolution from corporate morale booster to cultural phenomenon occurred through multiple channels. Philadelphia brothers Bernard and Murray Spain, who owned novelty company Traffic Stoppers, recognized the design's commercial potential and began producing their own versions in the early 1970s (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). The Spain brothers added the slogan "Have a happy day," which later evolved into "Have a nice day"—a phrase that became inseparably linked with the smiley face in American popular culture (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). Within a year of trademarking their version in 1971, they had sold fifty million buttons and expanded into posters, mugs, t-shirts, and countless other products (Domestika, 2024).

The smiley's spread was facilitated by a crucial factor: neither Ball nor State Mutual had trademarked or copyrighted the design. By 1971, when Ball finally consulted patent attorneys about protecting his creation, they informed him the design had entered the public domain (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). Ball's response to this missed financial opportunity revealed his character: "It never bothered me. I figured if I make the world a little happier, OK, fine" (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025). His son Charles later explained that Ball "was not a money-driven guy, he used to say, 'Hey, I can only eat one steak at a time, drive one car at a time'" (Wikipedia Contributors, 2025).

The lack of trademark protection created opportunities for others to capitalize on the design. In 1972, French journalist Franklin Loufrani registered the smiley trademark in France while working for the newspaper France-Soir, where he used it to highlight rare instances of good news (Domestika, 2024). His son Nicolas Loufrani later transformed this into The Smiley Company, which became one of the top one hundred licensing companies globally, generating hundreds of millions of dollars annually through licensing agreements with brands like Zara, Fendi, Levi's, and Mars candy (CNBC, 2019; Smithsonian Magazine, 2013).

The smiley face demonstrated remarkable cultural adaptability throughout subsequent decades. It became associated with peace movements in the 1970s, was adopted by rave culture in the 1980s and 1990s as a symbol of hedonistic dance-party spirit, and was co-opted by grunge culture when Nirvana placed a distorted version on album covers (History.com, 2025). The design even appeared in the graphic novel Watchmen, featuring a blood splatter across the yellow circle—a dark subversion that Ball himself reportedly found amusing when shown copies at a 1998 fan appearance (World Smile Day, n.d.).

The smiley's influence extends directly into contemporary digital communication. It serves as the conceptual ancestor of emoticons and emojis, demonstrating how a simple visual expression of emotion could transcend language barriers and cultural differences (History.com, 2025). The design's ability to convey meaning instantly and universally established principles that would later govern digital communication in the internet age.

In his later years, Ball sought to reclaim the smiley's original positive intent from its overwhelming commercialization. In 1999, he founded World Smile Day, observed annually on the first Friday in October, with the catchphrase "Do an act of kindness—help one person smile" (World Smile Day, n.d.). After Ball's death in 2001, his son Charles established the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation to support children's causes and preserve his father's legacy (Domestika, 2024).