Yellow Smileys and Their History

Today’s internet culture
involves a lot of use of smiley faces and emoticon faces, which add feeling to
text communication and eliminate ambiguity and misunderstandinds. They are used extensively in email, chat messages, and bulletin board and forum posts. But the yellow smiley face that lies at the root of all those internet emoticons has a real history to it that few people know about.

The yellow and black smiley face design that we are all so familiar with was first created by artist Harvey Ball in 1963, for an advertising campaign of State Mutual Life Insurance. In the 1970s the smiley exploded in popularity when it was used on a collection of novelty products created by Bernard and Murray Spain. Featuring the pleasant catchphrase “Have a happy day”, some of the best-selling products included coffee mugs, t-shirts, stickers, buttons and badges, etc. This simple image and message presented a pleasant reminder to the busy person to slow down a little and
enjoy life every day.

A number of parties including the 300 pound gorilla known as Walmart have attempted to claim copyright title to the smiley image. Walmart utilized the smiley image in a massive 2006 promo campaign, and attempted to claim legal title to the image. A battle between them and Harvey Bell, as well as another company called “Smiley World” which licenses the smiley in many countries, ensued. In 2008 a judge ruled that Walmart did not own the image, recognizing that it has been around for decades. After that, Walmart slowly began to move away from using the image, removing it from advertising and its website.

The smiley is such an incredinly simple image that there is little doubt that multiple imaginations could have “created” the same icon, so it makes sense that there are multiple copyright claims. But it makes sense that Harvey Ball should claim the copyright based on his conviction to use proceeds from the smiley icon for charity work. His kindness and generosity are wonderful reflections of the spirit of the image and its positivity.