Who created the smiley face and when?

Answer 1

Harvey Ross Ball was the inventor of the smiley face. Born on 10 July 1921 in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, he was apprenticed to a local sign painter, and later attended Worcester Art Museum School where he studied fine arts. He then served over two decades in the National Guard, and was posted in Asia and the Pacific during World War II. After the war, he worked for a local advertising firm until he started his own business, Harvey Ball Advertising, in 1959.

The invention of the Smiley face came about in an attempt to boost employee morale after it dropped when State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, MA (now known as Allmerica Financial) purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. Ball was employed as a freelance artist to create a smiley face to be used on buttons, desk cards, and posters. The Smiley was invented within ten minutes, and earned Ball just $45. The use of the Smiley was part of the company's friendship campaign whereby State Mutual handed out 100 smiley pins to employees. The aim was to get employees to smile while using the phone and doing other tasks. The buttons were very popular, and by 1971, over 50 million Smiley Face buttons had been sold.

"I made a circle with a smile for a mouth on yellow paper, because it was sunshiny and bright," Ball stated in a 1996 interview with The Associated Press. When he turned the drawing upside down, the smile became a frown so, deciding that was not such a good choice, Ball added two eyes and the Smiley Face was born.

Harvey Ball died in April 2001, survived by his wife and 3 kids. He never regretted the fact that he did not patent his smiley face.