Smiley

A stylized image of a smiling face.

Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Smiley Face (disambiguation), Happy face (disambiguation), and Smiley (disambiguation). One might observe that humanity, in its infinite capacity for semantic redundancy, has found myriad ways to categorize a simple curve.

Example of a smiley face An example of an emoticon smiley face (represented using a colon followed by a parenthesis) used in direct communication, as seen in this screenshot of an email. A stark reminder of how we reduce complex internal states to basic punctuation. Another example of a smiley The smiley face of Sabritas named Oscar, having an open mouth. Its perpetual, unblinking cheerfulness is, frankly, unsettling.

A smiley, often simply known as a smiley face, is fundamentally a basic ideogram designed to represent a smiling face. [1] [2] Its journey from a mere doodle to a globally recognized symbol of popular culture has been rather extensive, particularly since the mid-20th century. It manifests either as a standalone graphic or, more commonly in contemporary communication, as a foundational element for emoticons and emoji.

The earliest iterations of the smiley were, predictably, minimalist: two dots for eyes, a single line for a mouth. A pragmatic, if somewhat uninspired, beginning. However, as with most human endeavors, this simplicity soon gave way to more elaborate designs throughout the 1950s, incorporating features such as noses, eyebrows, and distinct outlines, betraying a persistent need to add detail where none was truly required. A significant early commercial appearance involved the New York radio station WMCA, which, in the early 1960s, employed a distinctive yellow and black design for its "Good Guys!" promotional campaign. [3] [4] [5] This color scheme, perhaps by sheer accident or some deeper, subconscious resonance, proved remarkably enduring.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a proliferation of these yellow-and-black designs, each claimant asserting their unique genesis. Notable figures in this rather crowded origin story include Harvey Ross Ball in 1963, whose version is often cited as the most iconic, despite its modest beginnings [6] [5] [7], and Franklin Loufrani, who entered the scene in 1971 with a version that would, against all odds, become the cornerstone of a global empire. [8] [9] [10] Indeed, The Smiley Company, founded by Loufrani, now asserts intellectual property rights over a specific iteration of the smiley face in more than 100 countries, a testament to the commercialization of an ostensibly universal gesture. It has since ascended to the ranks of the top 100 licensing companies globally, proving that even happiness can be monetized.

The United States experienced a pronounced "smile face" fad in 1971, a fleeting cultural obsession that, like many fads, burned brightly before fading into the background, only to re-emerge in new forms. [11] [12] [13] [4] [14] The Associated Press (AP), ever the chronicler of human trivialities, disseminated a wirephoto on September 11, 1971, featuring Joy P. Young and Harvey Ball alongside the now-familiar design. The report noted that "two affiliated insurance companies" were vying for credit for the symbol, with Harvey Ball designing it and Bernard and Murray Spain claiming responsibility for its market introduction. [15] These entities were identified as the Worcester Mutual Fire Insurance Company of America and the Guarantee Mutual Assurance Company of America, whose 1963 "Smile Power" campaign had initiated the distribution of smiley buttons to their employees, a rather transparent attempt to inject artificial cheer into corporate culture. [16] In October 1971 [8], Loufrani, then a journalist for the French newspaper France-Soir, shrewdly trademarked his own design in France. [8] [17] [18]

Today, the smiley face has transcended its origins as a mere ideogram, evolving into a versatile template for communication and an integral component of written language. Its internet genesis can be attributed to Scott Fahlman in the 1980s, who, with a stroke of pragmatic genius, first proposed that mundane ASCII characters could be ingeniously arranged to form faces and convey emotions within text-based communication. From Fahlman's rudimentary designs, we have witnessed the proliferation of digital pictograms now universally recognized as emoticons. [19] These digital descendants, while evolving considerably, remain loosely tethered to the yellow and black ideograms that first gained traction in the 1960s and 1970s, a persistent visual legacy in an ever-changing digital landscape.

Origin

As a surname and adjective

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The linguistic lineage of the word "smiley" can be traced back to Lanarkshire, Scotland, where it existed as a surname, alongside its various orthographic permutations such as Smylie, Smyly, or Smaillie. [20] During the medieval period, surnames frequently emerged from descriptive nicknames, a rather quaint practice. In this particular instance, "Smiley" would have been bestowed upon an individual characterized by a perpetually cheerful disposition. [21] The earliest recorded individual bearing this surname is believed to be Thomas Smiley, documented in Derry, Northern Ireland, in 1660 as a significant military figure. [22] As a Williamite and a participant in the migration of Scots to Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster, Thomas Smiley was, in all likelihood, a direct descendant of those who migrated from Lanarkshire in the preceding century.

The adoption of "smiley" as an adjective in literature followed its use as a surname, appearing only occasionally. Much like its nominal predecessor, the adjectival "smiley" arose from the colloquial or creative truncation of "smiling," a linguistic shortcut designed to mimic spoken dialect. [23] James Russell Lowell, a poet of the mid-19th century, notably employed the word "smily" as a substitute for "smiling" in his poem, The Courtin’. [24] [25] Over a century later, in 1957, the author Jane McHenry, writing in Family Weekly magazine, issued a rather direct instruction: "Draw a big smiley face on the plate!" [26] The following year, an illustration featuring a noseless smiling face—comprising two dots for eyes, eyebrows, and a single curved line for a mouth—accompanied an article in Family Weekly titled Galloping Ghosts! by Bill Ross. The accompanying text provided context for this early visual:

Collect six empty pop bottles and six cone-shaped paper cups. With crayons draw smiley faces on three of the cups and scary ones on the others. Put a cup on top of each bottle and line them up as 'ghosts.'. .Keep score by counting five points for each scary-faced ghost knocked over and, since it is a night for spooks, only one point for each smiley! [27]

This demonstrates a nascent understanding of the symbol's capacity to convey mood, even in the context of a child's game.

Name of designs

In their nascent stages, these iconic designs were often generically referred to as "smiling face" or "happy face." The 1961 "Good Guys!" campaign by WMCA notably incorporated a black smiley onto a yellow sweatshirt, a design that quickly earned the moniker "happy face" among the public. [28] Interestingly, both the Spain Brothers and Harvey Ross Ball in the 1970s prioritized catchy slogans over assigning an official name to their respective smiley designs. When Ball completed his iconic design, it was not formally named. Instead, it was subtly branded as "The Smile Insurance Company," a label that appeared on the reverse of the badges he produced, reflecting their original commercial purpose for an insurance firm. The Spain Brothers, on the other hand, leveraged the ubiquitous slogan "Have a nice day," [5] [11] a phrase now so inextricably linked with the smiley face that it often overshadows the slogan itself. A retrospective news article published in September 1972 meticulously traced the widespread popularization of smiley buttons back to the 1963 "smile power" campaign, spearheaded by the Worcester Mutual Fire Insurance Company of America and the Guarantee Mutual Assurance Company of America. These companies distributed the initial "smiley buttons" to their employees, aiming to foster a "smile attitude" towards customers and among their internal staff. John Adam, Jr., president of Worcester/Guarantee, candidly admitted, "I guess we proved that a smile really goes a long way." He further elaborated, in response to inquiries regarding the companies' decision not to trademark the button design: "We never intended to keep the smile to ourselves—we want everyone to smile and to keep smiling and to remind them that that is our first goal in serving our customers—keep 'em smiling!" [16] A rare moment of corporate altruism, or perhaps just a missed opportunity for further monetization.

The term "smiley" itself gained traction through Franklin Loufrani in France. He registered his specific smiley design for trademark protection in 1971 while employed as a journalist for France-Soir. This "Smiley" design was initially used to highlight positive news stories within the newspaper, a seemingly innocuous beginning that eventually laid the groundwork for The Smiley Company, a global licensing operation. [29]

For a period, competing terms such as "smiling face" and "happy face" were in circulation, reflecting a lack of industry consensus. However, as the yellow and black ideogram permeated popular culture throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the name "smiley" gradually became the commonly accepted descriptor. This ideogram subsequently served as the conceptual bedrock for the creation of emoticon emojis, which are essentially digital interpretations of the original smiley ideogram. These digital iterations, largely retaining the iconic yellow and black design, have become the most frequently used category of emojis, especially since their adoption by Unicode from 2006 onwards. Consequently, "smiley" has evolved into a broader term, encompassing both the classic ideogram design and the numerous emojis that share its fundamental yellow and black aesthetic.

Ideogram history

Early history of smiling faces

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The earliest known depiction of a smiling face was unearthed by a team of archaeologists under the direction of Nicolò Marchetti from the University of Bologna. Marchetti and his team meticulously reassembled fragments of a Hittite pot, dating back to approximately 1700 BC, discovered within the ancient city of Karkamış in modern-day Turkey. Upon the successful reconstruction of the vessel, the team observed a distinct, large smiling face engraved upon its surface, marking it as the oldest artifact bearing such a design ever found. [30] A clear indication that the human desire to express simple joy, or at least its representation, is profoundly ancient.

A page from the score of Erwin Schulhoff's " In Futurum " (one of his " Fünf Pittoresken ") includes smiley faces. This particular movement, published in 1919, intriguingly incorporates both smiling and sad faces into its musical notation. [31] [32] This early artistic inclusion highlights a more nuanced use of the symbol, predating its commercial ubiquity, suggesting that artists perceived its expressive potential long before marketers. As Leo Carey noted in The New Yorker, the score features "fermatas, exclamation points, question marks, and, in the middle and at the end, enigmatic signs that look like a hybrid of a half note and a smiley face." [32]

In the 1930s, an idiosyncratic tramp during the Great Depression, affectionately nicknamed "Santa Claus Smith," captivated public attention. Identifying himself as John S. Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe, he embarked on a peculiar journey across the United States. His modus operandi involved distributing hand-scrawled checks for exorbitant, fantastical sums to individuals who offered him small acts of kindness, such as a meal, a cup of coffee, or a ride. These unconventional checks were rendered in indelible pencil on humble scraps of brown wrapping paper. A consistent feature of his unique financial instruments was a crude, yet unmistakable, smiling-face doodle: two simple dots for eyes, a single dot for a nose, and a curved line for a mouth. His distinctive handwriting often included the charming misspelling of "thousand." Contemporary documentation of his checks and the accompanying doodled smile can be found in bank correspondence meticulously reviewed for Joseph Mitchell’s 1940 profile. Later historical analyses have frequently underscored this episode as a remarkably early and culturally resonant appearance of a smile motif within the United States. [33] [34] A poignant example of a simple gesture finding its way into the most unexpected corners of human experience.

Ingmar Bergman's 1948 film Port of Call features a particularly evocative scene where the profoundly unhappy character Berit (portrayed by Nine-Christine Jönsson [35]) uses lipstick to draw a sad face on her mirror. This "frowny" face bears a striking resemblance to its modern digital counterparts, albeit with the inclusion of a dot for the nose, before her melancholic act is abruptly interrupted. [36] [17] This cinematic moment underscores the enduring human need to visually represent emotional states, even negative ones. Subsequently, in September 1963 [37], The Funny Company, an American children's television program, premiered. This show adopted a noseless smiling face as the logo for its kids' club, and notably, its closing credits concluded with the cheerfully insistent message, "Keep Smiling!" [38] [39] [40] [41] One can almost hear the forced optimism echoing through the decades.

Dating from 1741 to 1953, a collection of smiling face designs from illustrations from literature, advertising, and promotional material. They include the film poster for the 1953 film, Lili. These historical artifacts demonstrate a consistent, if varied, presence of the smiling face motif across different eras and media, highlighting its gradual, almost inevitable, integration into visual culture.

In the latter half of the 20th century, the simple face, now universally recognized as a smiley, underwent a significant transformation, evolving into a widely known symbol distinguished by its iconic yellow and black features. The earliest documented instance of this specific yellow and black combination being used for a smiling face dates back to late 1962. At this time, the New York City radio station WMCA initiated a marketing campaign that involved the release of a distinctive yellow sweatshirt. [42] [43] By 1963, an impressive figure of over 11,000 of these sweatshirts had been distributed. Their prominence was further amplified by features in Billboard magazine, and numerous celebrities, including actress Patsy King and the perpetually enigmatic Mick Jagger, were photographed wearing them. [3] [17] The radio station ingeniously integrated the "happy face" into a listener competition: any listener who answered their phone with the station's jingle, "WMCA Good Guys!", was promptly rewarded with a "WMCA Good Guys!" sweatshirt, which prominently featured the yellow and black happy face within its design. [44] [45] [46] The specific characteristics of the WMCA smiley included a vibrant yellow face, simple black dots for eyes, and a slightly askew smile, lending it a distinctly hand-drawn and less-than-perfect appearance. [46] It's worth noting that originally, the yellow and black sweatshirt (sometimes referred to as gold) bore only the text "WMCA Good Guys!" on the front, with the smiley face being a later, albeit impactful, addition. [18] [42]

"Authentic Worcester-made smiley face", by Harvey Ball. A rather grand claim for such a simple design, but then, humans do love their superlatives.

Following this, a multitude of United States–based designs for yellow and black happy faces emerged throughout the subsequent decade, each vying for recognition and market share. [47] [7] [18] The State Mutual Life Assurance Company, located in Worcester, Massachusetts, sought a method to boost staff morale in the wake of a merger with another insurance company. [48] John Adam, Jr., the company's Vice President, proposed a "friendship campaign," a rather saccharine concept. He then delegated Joy Young, the Assistant Director of Sales and Marketing, to spearhead this initiative. According to documents preserved at the Worcester Historical Museum, Young specifically requested that freelance artist Harvey Ball design "a little smile to be used on buttons, desk cards and posters." [49] Ball, in a remarkable display of efficiency, completed the happy face design in a mere ten minutes and was compensated a modest $45 (equivalent to approximately$ 462 in 2024). [45] [5] His particular rendition, characterized by a bright yellow background, dark oval eyes, a full, generous smile, and subtle creases at the sides of the mouth [46], was subsequently imprinted on over fifty million buttons, achieving widespread global recognition. While the design's inherent simplicity strongly suggests that similar versions undoubtedly existed prior to 1963—including those already mentioned—Ball's specific interpretation, as meticulously described, has undeniably ascended to the status of the most iconic and universally recognized version. [45] [5]

In 1967, Seattle-based graphic artist George Tanagi [50] created his own rendition of the smiling face, a commission from advertising agent David Stern. Tanagi's design was subsequently utilized in an advertising campaign for the Seattle-based University Federal Savings & Loan. [51] This "Put on a Happy Face" ad campaign drew inspiration from Lee Adams's lyrics from the musical Bye Bye Birdie. Stern, the mastermind behind this campaign, even incorporated the Happy Face into his own political endeavors, using it during his run for Seattle mayor in 1993. [5] Throughout the 1960s, the term "happy face" was considerably more prevalent in the United States than "smiley" when referring to earlier commercial designs of smiling faces. [52]

The Philadelphia-based brothers Bernard and Murray Spain also capitalized on the design, incorporating it onto novelty items for their business, Traffic Stoppers. Their marketing efforts centered on the slogan "Have a happy day," a phrase that, for better or worse, became synonymous with the symbol. The Spain brothers rapidly expanded their operation, reportedly selling millions of buttons in various sizes by 1971. They openly acknowledged that they did not receive royalties from other companies producing similar smile designs and claimed only limited copyright protection when the image was explicitly paired with text such as "Have a Happy Day" or, more famously, "Have a nice day." They also stocked smile products from other manufacturers alongside their own, operating under the pragmatic belief that these "just enhance our own products." [11] [53] Indeed, they, much like Harvey Ball, produced an astonishing number of happy face badges, exceeding 50 million with the New York button manufacturer NG Slater. [54] [55] [56]

In 1972, the Frenchman Franklin Loufrani shrewdly trademarked his specific version of a smiley face. His initial application involved using it to highlight positive news stories within the pages of the newspaper France Soir, where he was employed as a journalist. He simply christened the design "Smiley," a name that would ultimately form the foundation of The Smiley Company. In 1996, Nicolas Loufrani, Franklin's son, assumed control of the family enterprise, transforming it into a formidable multinational corporation. Nicolas Loufrani was openly dismissive of Harvey Ball's claim to have originated the first smiley face. While acknowledging the near-identicality of his father's design and Ball's, Loufrani asserted that the design's inherent simplicity rendered it impossible for any single individual to claim sole creation. To bolster this argument, Loufrani's company website rather ambitiously cites early cave paintings discovered in France (purportedly dating back to 2500 BC) as the earliest depictions of a smiley face. Loufrani also referenced a 1960 radio advertising campaign that he claimed employed a similar design. [7] [17] The scramble for historical precedence, it seems, is as enduring as the smile itself.

The Smiley Company, with its global ambitions, claims to possess trademark rights to certain versions of the Smiley face in approximately one hundred countries. [57] Its subsidiary, SmileyWorld Ltd, headquartered in London and overseen by Nicolas Loufrani, is responsible for the creation and approval of all licensed Smiley products sold in territories where the company holds the trademark. [29] The Smiley brand and its distinctive logo have achieved substantial market penetration through numerous licensees across diverse sectors, encompassing clothing, home decoration, perfumery, plush toys, stationery, and publishing, as well as through various promotional campaigns. [58] This commercial ubiquity has cemented The Smiley Company's position as one of the top 100 licensing companies globally, boasting a formidable turnover of US$167 million in 2012. [59] The brand further expanded its retail presence with the opening of its first dedicated Smiley shop in London, situated within the Boxpark shopping center, in December 2011. [60] The year 2022 saw widespread celebrations for the smiley's 50th birthday, many of which manifested as high-profile collaborations between The Smiley Company and major retailers, such as Nordstrom, further cementing its status as a commercial icon. [61]

The digital evolution of the smiley, particularly its integration into online communication, truly commenced in the late 1990s with its initial incorporation into nascent emoticons and early instant messaging systems. By the dawn of the 2000s, popular instant messaging platforms like MSN Messenger began to introduce official toolbars, enabling users to effortlessly send pictographic icons, thereby streamlining the expression of emotion. Microsoft's 2004 beta release of MSN Messenger 7, for example, explicitly highlighted the inclusion of "special emoticons, the smiley faces and other icons that indicate emotions." [62] Prior to these official integrations, a thriving ecosystem of third-party "smiley toolbars" and plug-ins had already become widely adopted by users, eager to augment their digital conversations. One such example is the "SmileyWorld" toolbar, developed by Nicolas Loufrani, which The Smiley Company purports drew inspiration from its earlier "Smiley Dictionary" of icons. However, it is prudent to note that these claims largely originate from the company's own promotional materials. [63] Independent reporting, with a refreshing clarity, distinguishes between "emoticons," which are fundamentally text-based symbols popularized in the 1980s, and "emoji," which originated with NTT DoCoMo in Japan in the late 1990s, clarifying a distinction often blurred by casual use. [64]

Smiley ball at London 2012 Olympics. A fleeting moment of engineered collective happiness, easily dispersed by a strong breeze.

In more recent times, the smiley has been strategically deployed as a symbol of happiness or as a deliberate tool to disseminate joy in public spaces and at various events. A notable instance of this occurred at the London 2012 opening ceremony. As the extravagant show commenced, large, lightweight balls were released into the assembled crowd. These balls, resembling oversized beach balls, were designed to be easily manipulated by audience members and each featured a prominent black smiley face on one side, encouraging a spontaneous, if somewhat directed, sense of collective enjoyment. [65]

In China, there has been a noticeable and sustained increase in the cultural penetration of smileys, manifesting both as a tangible brand presence and in its ubiquitous digital form. [66] This escalating popularity has directly led to the establishment of numerous dedicated smiley merchandise stores across the country. By the close of 2024, an impressive 15 such retail outlets had opened in major cities like Guangzhou, Suzhou, and Xiamen, with projections suggesting that this number could realistically exceed 50 stores by the end of 2027. [67] Other nations in Asia are also experiencing a similar surge in demand, including Thailand, where three new stores commenced operations in 2024, demonstrating the symbol's widespread, cross-cultural appeal. [68]

Language and communication

Main article: Emoticon

The earliest known smiling face to be documented within a written record was meticulously drawn by a Slovak notary in 1635. This rather charming annotation served to signify his profound satisfaction with the meticulous state of his town's municipal financial records. [69] The golden smiling face was carefully placed at the bottom of the legal document, positioned conspicuously next to the signature of lawyer Jan Ladislaides. [70] A moment of unexpected, bureaucratic joy. The Danish poet and author Johannes V. Jensen was renowned for his experimental approach to writing, among other things. In a letter dispatched to publisher Ernst Bojesen in December 1900, Jensen notably included both a happy and a sad face, demonstrating an early, deliberate use of these symbols for emotional conveyance. It was during the 1900s that the design began its evolution from rudimentary eyes and a mouth into a more widely recognizable and accepted form. [71]

A rather contentious early use of a smiling ASCII emoticon in a printed text has been posited to exist in Robert Herrick's poem To Fortune (1648) [72], which contains the line "Upon my ruins (smiling yet :)". Journalist Levi Stahl, perhaps with a touch of hopeful romanticism, suggested that this might have been an intentional "orthographic joke." However, a more prosaic explanation suggests that this occurrence is likely nothing more than the colon being placed inside the parentheses rather than outside, which is the standard typographic practice today: "(smiling yet):". There are, after all, citations of similar punctuation in entirely non-humorous contexts, even within Herrick's own body of work. [73] It is, therefore, highly probable that the parenthetical placement was a later editorial addition, rather than a deliberate comedic or proto-emoticon choice by Herrick himself. [74] One must be wary of projecting modern sensibilities onto historical texts.

On the Internet, emojis have transcended mere text, evolving into a potent visual medium for conveyance. The first recorded mention of a digital smiley on the Internet occurred on September 19, 1982, when Scott Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University penned his now-famous proposal [75] [19]:

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use

:-(

A pragmatic solution to a burgeoning communication problem, born from the necessity of clarity in a text-only world.

Yellow graphical smileys have subsequently been adopted for a diverse array of applications, including their early integration into video games of the 1980s. Yahoo! Messenger, launched in 1998, famously incorporated smiley symbols both within the user list, appearing next to each active user, and as the application's primary icon. In November 2001, and increasingly thereafter, the use of smiley emojis directly within chat text was widely adopted by various chat systems, including Yahoo Messenger, solidifying their role in digital dialogue.

Smiley faces from DOS code page 437. A glimpse into the digital archaeology of expressions.

The smiley is, rather prosaically, the printable version of characters 1 and 2 (black-and-white versions) from codepage 437 (1981), the default character set of the original IBM PC and all subsequent PC compatible computers. For contemporary computing environments, all versions of Microsoft Windows released after Windows 95 [76] are capable of rendering the smiley as part of Windows Glyph List 4, although it must be noted that certain computer fonts may regrettably omit these specific characters. [77]

The smiley face was formally incorporated into Unicode's Miscellaneous Symbols block with version 1.1, released in 1993. [78]

Unicode smiley characters:

☺ U+263A White Smiling Face (This may appear as an emoji on some devices)
☻ U+263B Black Smiling Face

The Miscellaneous Symbols block also thoughtfully includes its melancholic counterpart:

☹ U+2639 White Frowning Face

Later additions to Unicode significantly expanded the repertoire, incorporating a vast number of variants designed to express a broader spectrum of human emotions. This expansion was particularly pronounced with the introduction of the "Emoticons" and "Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs" blocks in Unicode versions 6.0 (2010) and 8.0 (2015), respectively. These additions were primarily introduced to ensure compatibility with the ad-hoc implementation of emoticons by Japanese telephone carriers, which had utilized previously unused ranges of the Shift JIS standard, thereby creating a de facto standard within the range with lead bytes 0xF5 to 0xF9. [79] KDDI has, in fact, pushed this even further, introducing hundreds more within the space with lead bytes 0xF3 and 0xF4, demonstrating a relentless drive to digitize every conceivable flicker of human sentiment. [80]

Recent academic inquiries have meticulously investigated the nuanced ways in which various demographic factors influence individuals' interpretations and representations of smiley faces. A particularly noteworthy observational study conducted by Clarke et al. (2018) involved 723 participants who were simply "asked to draw a smiley face for themselves." The primary objective was to meticulously examine the impact of gender and age on how individuals depict smiley faces when prompted. The findings revealed significant disparities, which, if one is honest, are entirely predictable: women and younger participants (specifically those aged 30 or younger) exhibited a greater propensity to illustrate traditional smiley faces, characterized by minimalist designs that primarily include eyes and a mouth, often conspicuously omitting additional features such as noses or external outlines. These results unequivocally highlight the presence of demographic biases in both the interpretation and the artistic depiction of smiley faces, underscoring the critical necessity for careful consideration of these factors in any research or surveys that employ smileys or similar facial symbols. This is particularly crucial for studies that rely on self-reported outcomes or scales incorporating facial images to denote emotional or evaluative states, as the very tools of measurement may be subtly skewed by demographic predispositions. [81] Humans, it seems, are not even consistent in their simplest expressions.

smiling face :)
winking face ;)
surprised face :O
confused face :/
sad face :(
crying face :'(
grinning face :D
kissing face :*

Symbolism in popular culture and applications

The smiley has, through a rather circuitous route, become almost universally synonymous with culture across the globe. It is deployed for myriad purposes, encompassing communication, imagery, branding, and topical applications, serving to convey a broad spectrum of emotions. In the realm of print media, countless brands have, since the 1960s, embraced the yellow happy face as a straightforward symbol of happiness, a rather unsubtle, yet effective, marketing ploy.

United States advertising campaigns

Diverse designs of smiling faces were strategically utilized in advertising campaigns throughout the early to mid-20th century. Much of this burgeoning commercial activity was concentrated within the Northeastern United States. [citation needed] One of the earliest documented commercial applications of a smiling face occurred in 1919, when the Buffalo Steam Roller Company, based in Buffalo, New York, began affixing stickers to its receipts. These stickers featured the word "thanks" positioned above a smiling face. This particular face was rendered with a surprising degree of detail, including eyebrows, a nose, teeth, a chin, and distinct facial creases, somewhat reminiscent of the archaic "man-in-the-Moon" style characteristics. [82] Another early commercial foray into the smiling face motif took place in 1922, when the Gregory Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio, placed an advertisement for "smiley face" balloons in The Billboard. This iteration of the happy face boasted hair, a nose, teeth, distinct "pie eyes," and triangular shapes above the eyes. [83] Later, in 1953 and 1958, similar happy faces were incorporated into promotional campaigns for the films Lili (1953) and Gigi (1958), demonstrating its utility across different entertainment mediums. [84]

The prevalence of happy faces in the northeastern United States, and subsequently across the entire nation, solidified into a "common theme" within advertising circles from the 1960s onwards. This visual motif truly ascended to prominence during that decade, undergoing various reinterpretations and remixes that persisted well into the 1980s. While sporadic designs of smiling faces or happy faces did exist prior to this period, it was not until the WMCA radio station's adoption of the yellow and black color scheme in the early 1960s that the theme truly became commonplace and widely recognized.

In print

Within the United States, numerous instances of smiling faces appeared in print throughout the 1900s. However, the comics and cartoons sector was notably the first industry to widely embrace and integrate the smiley motif into its visual language.

Franklin Loufrani famously employed the word "smiley" when he designed a smiling face for the newspaper he was working for at the time. Loufrani's specific design emerged in 1971, while he was a journalist for the French newspaper France-Soir. The newspaper utilized Loufrani's smiley to conspicuously highlight stories that they categorized as "feel-good news," [29] a rather cynical categorization of human interest. This particular smiley, as history shows, went on to become the foundational element for The Smiley Company, an enterprise built entirely on this simple symbol. Mad magazine, with its characteristic irreverence, notably featured the smiley face a year later, in 1972, emblazoned across its entire front page for the April edition of the magazine. This marked one of the earliest instances where the smiling face had been deliberately adapted or subverted, with one of the twenty visible smileys audaciously pulling a distorted face, a clear commentary on forced cheerfulness. [85]

In the convoluted universe of DC Comics, the shadowy businessman "Boss Smiley" makes several appearances. This character, a political boss, is disturbingly depicted with a literal smiley face for a head, a rather unsettling metaphor for the superficiality of power. [86]

The iconic logo for and cover of the omnibus edition of the Watchmen comic book series features a blood-splattered smiley badge. This badge, worn by the morally ambiguous character, the Comedian, serves as a grim and potent symbol, its pristine yellow marred by violence, initiating the complex chain of events within the story.

Music and film

As distinct music genres began to coalesce and develop their own unique subcultures from the 1970s onwards, many of these emergent cultures started to incorporate a smiling face into their visual identity. In the late 1970s, the American punk band Dead Kennedys launched their incendiary first recording, "California über alles." The single cover was a provocative collage, intentionally designed to evoke the disturbing imagery of a Nazi rally preceding World War II. It prominently featured three vertical banners, commonly seen at such rallies, but with the usual swastikas audaciously replaced by large, incongruous smileys, a stark and unsettling juxtaposition of symbols. [87] In the UK, the happy face has been intimately associated with psychedelic culture since the era of Ubi Dwyer and the Windsor Free Festival in the 1970s. This association deepened significantly with the rise of electronic dance music culture, particularly with acid house, which exploded onto the scene during the Second Summer of Love in the late 1980s. The connection was indelibly cemented when the band Bomb the Bass prominently featured an extracted smiley, directly lifted from the Watchmen comic book series, at the center of its "Beat Dis" hit single.

The Watchmen comic series logo. A symbol that manages to be both simple and profoundly unsettling.

Beyond the critically acclaimed movie adaptation of Watchmen, the 2016 film Suicide Squad includes a subtle nod to the enduring symbol. In one scene, the character Deadshot is depicted staring into the window of a clothing store. Positioned behind a line of mannequins is a solitary yellow smiley face pin, a visual Easter egg closely associated with another DC Comics character, the Comedian, reinforcing the symbol's pervasive presence within that fictional universe. [88] The 2001 film Evolution adopted a distinctive three-eyed smiley face as its official logo, a slightly unsettling, mutated version of the classic design. This unique emblem was subsequently carried over to the movie's spin-off cartoon series, Alienators: Evolution Continues.

In the late 1980s, the smiley once again surged into prominence within the music industry. It was enthusiastically adopted during the explosive growth of acid house culture across Europe and the UK during that period. According to numerous accounts, this resurgence began when influential DJ Danny Rampling utilized the smiley as a celebratory motif for Paul Oakenfold's birthday. [89] This seemingly innocuous act ignited a cultural movement, propelling the smiley face into various dance genres and firmly establishing it as an iconic symbol of 1980s dance music. [90] A simple symbol, perfectly encapsulating a hedonistic subculture.

In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, it is rather charmingly implied that the titular character inadvertently inspired the iconic smiley face design. This occurs after he wipes his face on a T-shirt while on his epic cross-country run, leaving behind a simple, circular smudge that, in the film's narrative, sparks the creation of the ubiquitous symbol. One can appreciate the romanticized, if utterly implausible, origin story.

In 2022, the renowned DJ and producer David Guetta collaborated with Felix Da Housecat and Kittin to release the song "Silver Screen," a reimagined version of a 2001 dance track. Guetta's contemporary rendition was explicitly designed to celebrate themes of positivity and happiness. [91] The accompanying music video features a cameo from the distinctive street artist André Saraiva and prominently showcases diverse groups of people conveying the optimistic message "Take The Time To Smile." The video partners this message with a profusion of smileys, strategically placed on the sides of buildings, displayed on placards, and featured on posters, creating a pervasive visual affirmation of joy.

Physical products

Vittel, the mineral water brand, announced in 2017 its decision to feature the smiley on a special edition design of its water bottles. AdAge, observing this marketing strategy, referred to its use as a "feel-good effect." The commercial results were rather striking: water bottles adorned with the smiley icon experienced an 11.8% increase in sales compared to standard bottles, with an impressive 128 million bottles bearing the smiley design sold across Europe. [92] A testament to the power of a simple, positive image.

In the UK, "Jammie Dodgers," a legendary and beloved biscuit line, features a distinctive smiley face intricately engraved into its circular cookies, a small, edible moment of cheer.

Art and fashion

Smilies in Tel Aviv street art. Proof that even rebellion sometimes needs a cheerful facade.

As part of his formative works, the enigmatic anti-consumerist graffiti artist Banksy frequently incorporated the smiley face into his provocative art. The first of his major pieces to feature a smiley was his "Flying Copper" portrait, completed in 2004, a period during which Banksy was actively experimenting with creating portraits on canvas and paper. He also famously utilized the smiley in 2005, replacing the traditional visage of the Grim Reaper with the cheerful symbol, an unsettling juxtaposition that became widely known as "grin reaper." [93] [94] In 2007, The Smiley Company strategically partnered with the fashion house Moschino for the "Smiley for Moschino" campaign, further cementing the symbol's presence in high fashion. [95]

During the tumultuous COVID-19 pandemic, the fashion label Pull & Bear announced the release of a new line of t-shirts prominently featuring a smiley design on the front, a rather optimistic gesture in uncertain times. [92] Other prominent fashion labels that have incorporated the smiley into their garments include fast-fashion giants like H&M and Zara, demonstrating its widespread appeal across various market segments. The smiley has also ascended to the echelons of high-end fashion lines, making appearances in collections from prestigious brands such as Fendi and Moncler. [96] Even high-end French jeweler Valerie Messika produced exquisite white gold and yellow pendants, each meticulously crafted to contain a miniature smiley face, proving that even luxury can embrace a touch of levity. [97]

To commemorate the 50th birthday of the iconic Smiley, Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Beijing, and Shanghai, along with 10 Nordstrom department stores, offered limited-edition smiley products, transforming a simple anniversary into a global retail event. [98] In the same year, Lee Jeans announced the launch of a new clothing collection, "Lee x Smiley," further integrating the symbol into mainstream apparel. [99]

Gaming

In 1980, Namco released the now-legendary Pac-Man, a distinctive yellow-faced cartoon character whose design clearly echoes the simplicity of the smiley. In 2008, the video game Battlefield: Bad Company incorporated a yellow smiley as a key element of its branding. The smiley was prominently featured throughout the game and also appeared on its cover, often depicted on the side of a grenade, an unsettlingly humorous juxtaposition that became synonymous with the Battlefield series. [100]

The 1987 Atari ST game MIDI Maze, subsequently released on other platforms as Faceball 2000, features round, yellow Smileys as its primary enemies. Adding a layer of dark humor, when a player is eliminated, these cheerful antagonists taunt them with the rather ironic phrase "Have a nice day."

The Pokémon Ditto is explicitly based on the smiley face, a rather peculiar choice for a creature capable of transforming into any other Pokémon. The staff at Game Freak described Ditto as "the weirdest Pokémon" in the entire franchise [101], a testament to its unique, yet simple, design origins.

Events, business, and social sciences

User experience researchers have demonstrated that the strategic deployment of smileys to represent measurement scales can effectively mitigate the inherent challenges associated with translation and implementation in brief, cross-cultural surveys. [102] A simplification, perhaps, but one that proves remarkably effective in bridging linguistic and cultural divides. Walmart notably employs a smiley face as its corporate mascot, a symbol intended to convey approachability and value. [103] During the London 2012 opening ceremony, in the early stages of the elaborate show, a multitude of giant yellow beach balls were released into the audience. Each of these oversized balls featured a prominent smiley face, encouraging a sense of playful engagement among the spectators. [104]

The Brooklyn Bridge was, rather unexpectedly, illuminated with a projected smiley onto its base one evening in 2020. This grand gesture was part of a larger, rather ambitious campaign initiated by The Smiley Company, explicitly aimed at "increasing happiness among New Yorkers." The projected smiley, a colossal 82 feet wide, notably featured light pink lipstick on its mouth, adding an unexpected touch of cosmetic flair to the iconic landmark. [105]

In 2022, the publishing house Assouline released "50 Years of Good News," a comprehensive and lavish examination of the cultural development of the smiley face and its pervasive global use, cementing its status as a subject worthy of serious academic and artistic inquiry. [106]

Also in 2022, the International Day of Happiness was commemorated by projecting a smiley onto several prominent landmarks across the globe. In Seoul, South Korea, a celebratory smiley was projected onto the iconic Seoul Tower, a luminous testament to the universal aspiration for joy. [107]

Claim of ownership and trademark disputes

In 1997, Franklin Loufrani made a concerted attempt to trademark the ideogram he had created within the United States. However, Walmart vigorously contested his application, citing its own use of a strikingly similar graphic for its "Rolling Back Prices" campaign, which had commenced a year prior. This contentious dispute escalated into a protracted court case in 2002, a legal battle that dragged on for more than a decade before a confidential settlement was finally reached. [108] [109] Despite this resolution, Walmart itself subsequently sued an online parodist for alleged "trademark infringement" after the individual utilized the symbol in their work. The District Court, however, found in favor of the parodist. In March 2008, the presiding judge concluded that Walmart's smiley face logo was not demonstrably "inherently distinctive" and that the company "has failed to establish that the smiley face has acquired secondary meaning or that it is otherwise a protectable trademark" under U.S. law. [110] [111] [112] This ruling underscored the difficulty of claiming exclusive ownership over such a simple, ubiquitous symbol. In June 2010, Walmart and The Smiley Company, founded by Loufrani, finally settled their decade-long dispute before the Chicago federal court. The specific terms of this agreement remain confidential, shrouded in the usual corporate secrecy. [113] [114] Notably, in 2016, Walmart reintroduced the smiley face across its website, social media profiles, and in select physical stores, signaling a renewed embrace of the symbol. [115]

The iconic grunge band Nirvana famously created its own distinctive smiley design in 1991. [116] For many years, it was widely believed that the band's enigmatic frontman, Kurt Cobain, was the sole designer of the Nirvana smiley. However, in 2020, media reports emerged suggesting that a Los Angeles–based freelance designer was, in fact, the true creative force behind the design, adding another layer of complexity to the symbol's contentious origins. [116]

The fashion house Marc Jacobs designed a particular smiley in 2018, characterized by a yellow outline and featuring the letters "M" and "J" ingeniously replacing the traditional eyes. The mouth design of this specific smiley bore a striking resemblance to the distinctive Nirvana design. In January 2019, legal representatives for Nirvana formally announced their intention to sue Marc Jacobs for a purported breach of copyright, initiating a high-profile legal battle over the rights to a stylized smile. [117] Following a judge's announcement in Los Angeles that the lawsuit could proceed, Marc Jacobs promptly announced a countersuit against Nirvana, escalating the legal skirmish. [118] In 2020, the aforementioned Los Angeles–based designer, who claimed to be the original creator of the Nirvana smiley, formally intervened in the ongoing case between Nirvana and Marc Jacobs, further complicating the already intricate legal proceedings. [119] It seems even a simple smile can incite endless litigation.