When was smiley invented

Written by Kate Silzer. This article was published in partnership with Artsy, the global platform for discovering and collecting art.

The original article can be seen here. In a video installation by James Joyce, a yellow circle rotates as two black ovals and a curved line tumble at the bottom, thwarted by gravity. Watching the video, Perseverance in the Face of Absurdity, which was projected at Banksy's pop-up dystopian theme park, Dismaland in , one can mentally reassemble the three shapes into their familiar formation: two eyes and a swooping smile.

It's a testament to the symbol that it can be deconstructed to such a degree and yet still be immediately recognizable. There is no doubt that it's a smiley face, though it looks anything but happy.

The yellow smiley icon was born in in Worcester, Massachusetts, when the graphic designer Harvey Ball was approached by State Mutual Life Assurance Company to create a morale booster for employees. As the story goes, it only took ten minutes for Ball to create an icon that would knit itself so firmly in the fabric of American culture that we'd be compelled to file lawsuits and contemplate it for decades to come.

For such an enduring image, the logic behind it is almost laughably simple. Ball is often quoted as saying to the Associated Press, "I made a circle with a smile for a mouth on yellow paper, because it was sunshiny and bright. Photo of Harvey Ball from People Magazine, Don't miss: Here's how much Nike's billionaire founder paid for the infamous swoosh logo in Like this story? Skip Navigation. Jennifer Liu.

The document was signed by a lawyer who also included a drawing of two dots and a line inside a circle to show his approval. To trace the birth of the yellow smiley face we think of today, we need to fast forward all the way to the s.

Ball created a yellow smiling face with two black dots for eyes and a curved, black line for a smile. The company loved it and placed it on a variety of merchandise. Neither Ball nor the company that hired him would trademark the symbol. In response to this rampant commercialization of the symbol he created, Harvey Ball declared October 1 as World Smile Day in honor of the joy that smiles bring worldwide. The first World Smile Day was held in , and it is still celebrated to this day.

Tired of resorting to the same emoji all the time? Consider some of these suggestions for emoji synonyms! Moving into the s … another happy face emerged in the digital space. The creation of the emoticon is credited to Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott Fahlman, who developed the idea in At the time, Fahlman and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon used online bulletin boards to chat with each other.

Fahlman noticed a recurring problem on the boards: it was often hard to tell if someone was being sarcastic on a humorous post. In response, Fahlman sent a message that suggested use of the character sequence :- to indicate sarcasm and :- to indicate seriousness. It was settled out of court in but its terms remain undisclosed. The cover to Watchmen No. The simple yellow smiley face created in probably has led to tens of thousands of variations and has appeared on everything from pillows and posters to perfume and pop art.

Its meaning has changed with social and cultural values: from the optimistic message of a s insurance company, to commercialized logo, to an ironic fashion statement, to a symbol of rave culture imprinted on ecstasy pills, to a wordless expression of emotions in text messages.

In the groundbreaking comic Watchmen , a blood-stained smiley face motif serves as something of a critique of American politics in a dystopian world featuring depressed and traumatized superheroes.