You have probably seen it thousands of times. Maybe you even sent one in a text message this morning. But few people know that the famous yellow smiley face started with one artist and a very small payment. Today is World Smile Day, which makes it a good day to tell his story.
It all began in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1963. An insurance company there, State Mutual Life Assurance, had merged with another insurance company, and the mood in the office was not great. The company wanted something that would help people feel a little happier at work, so it called Harvey Ball, a local artist.
Ball did not need long. He drew a yellow circle, added two black eyes and a big smile, and was finished in about 10 minutes. The company printed the face on buttons for its workers, and it paid Ball $45.
Ball never protected his drawing with a trademark, so he did not own the rights to it. At first, that did not seem important. Then the smiley face became very popular. By 1971, more than 50 million smiley buttons had been sold across the United States, and the face was showing up everywhere. Ball did not get any money from them.
Ball later remembered what people told him: “Tough luck, it’s in the public domain.” In other words, anyone could use it for free.
Ball did not seem too upset. After he died in 2001, his son Charles remembered one of his father’s favourite sayings: “Hey, I can only eat one steak at a time, drive one car at a time.”
Not everyone agrees that Ball was the first to draw a smiling yellow face. Other people made similar designs around the same time. A company in France also owns the name “Smiley” in many countries and sells products with its own version of the face. But in Worcester, people are proud of their local artist. Last year, a staff member at the Museum of Worcester called Ball “the grandfather of the emoji.”
Ball wanted people to remember the simple idea behind his little drawing. That is why, in 1999, he came up with World Smile Day. It falls on the first Friday of October every year, and this year, that is today. He hoped that on this day, people would do small acts of kindness and, of course, smile.
That could mean buying a coffee for a co-worker, sending a nice message to an old friend, or holding the door for a stranger. None of it costs much. In fact, it costs a lot less than $45.
Sources: The Associated Press, ABC News, UPI, Spectrum News 1, Clark University
Chances are you have already used one today, probably at the end of a text message, without giving it a second thought. The yellow smiley face is so familiar that it hardly feels as if anyone designed it. Someone did, though, and he was paid just $45 for his trouble. With World Smile Day falling today, his story is worth telling.
His name was Harvey Ball, and in December 1963 he was working as a commercial artist in Worcester, Massachusetts. State Mutual Life Assurance, a local insurer, had recently merged with another company, and morale in the office had taken a hit. Hoping to cheer everyone up, the company’s managers asked Ball for something simple and upbeat. He reportedly finished the job in about 10 minutes: a yellow circle, two black eyes, and a wide grin. State Mutual put the design on buttons for its employees and paid him $45.
Ball never applied for a trademark or copyright, and before long, the face had a life of its own. By the early 1970s, it had become a full-blown craze, and at its peak in 1971, more than 50 million smiley buttons were sold. None of that money went to Ball. “By 1973, the smiley face was everywhere,” he later recalled, as reported by ABC News. “They told me, ‘Tough luck, it’s in the public domain.’”
He seems to have taken it in stride. After Ball died in 2001, his son Charles told UPI that his father had no regrets about the money and liked to put it this way: “Hey, I can only eat one steak at a time, drive one car at a time.”
The question of who really invented the smiley face is less clear-cut than Worcester might like. Cheerful yellow faces had turned up elsewhere, and in 1971 French entrepreneur Franklin Loufrani began registering the “Smiley” name as a trademark, eventually in dozens of countries. His company, which still owns the brand, argues that Ball’s badge was a one-off commission that had little to do with its own global business. Ball’s supporters, for their part, point to his 1963 design as the original.
Hometown pride, at any rate, is not in short supply. The city’s minor league baseball team, the Worcester Red Sox, even has a mascot called Smiley Ball, inspired by his design. Speaking to Spectrum News 1 last year, a staff member at the Museum of Worcester went further, calling Ball “the grandfather of the emoji.”
Ball himself seemed more interested in what the face stood for than in who owned it. In 1999, he launched World Smile Day, to be held each year on the first Friday of October, as a way to encourage people to perform small acts of kindness and, naturally, to smile.
The idea has stuck around, much like his drawing, and taking part still costs nothing at all.
Sources: The Associated Press, ABC News, UPI, Spectrum News 1, Clark University, The Smiley Company
