Smiley - wikipedia Smiley For other uses of `` Smiley '', see Smiley ( disambiguation ). `` Smiley face '' redirects here. For other uses, see Smiley Face ( disambiguation ). Smiley A smiley ( sometimes simply called a happy face or smiling face ) is a stylized representation of a smiling humanoid face that is a part of popular culture worldwide. The classic form designed by Harvey Ball in 1963 comprises a yellow circle with two black dots representing eyes and a black arc representing the mouth ( ☺ ). On the Internet and in other plain text communication channels, the emoticon form ( sometimes also called the smiley - face emoticon ) has traditionally been most popular, typically employing a colon and a right parenthesis to form sequences like : ^ ), :), or ( : that resemble a smiling face when viewed after rotation through 90 degrees. `` Smiley '' is also sometimes used as a generic term for any emoticon. The smiley has been referenced in nearly all areas of Western culture including music, movies, and art. The smiley has also been associated with late 1980s and early 1990s rave culture. The plural form `` smilies '' is commonly used, but the variant spelling `` smilie '' is not as common as the `` y '' spelling. Contents 1 History 2 In text 3 Licensing and legal issues 3.1 United States 4 See also 5 References 6 External links History A poster for Lili in 1953 In or about 2017, a team of archaeologists led by Nicolò Marchetti of the University of Bologna pieced together the fragments of a Hittite pot from approximately 1700 BCE that had been found in Karkamış, Turkey. After it was pieced together, the team saw that it had what appeared to be a large smiley face painted on it. The poet and author Johannes V. Jensen was amongst other things famous for experimenting with the form of his writing. In a letter sent to publisher Ernst Bojesen in December 1900 he includes both a happy face and a sad face, resembling the modern smiley. Signature of Bernard Hennet, Abbot of Žďár nad Sázavou Cistercian cloister, in 1741, with smiley - like drawing A commercial version of a smiley face with the word `` THANKS '' above it was available in 1919 and applied as a sticker on receipts issued by the Buffalo Steam Roller Company in Buffalo New York. The round face was much more detailed than the one depicted above, having eyebrows, nose, teeth, chin, facial creases and shading, and is reminiscent of `` man - in - the - moon '' style characterizations. Ingmar Bergman 's 1948 film Port of Call includes a scene where the unhappy Berit draws a sad face -- closely resembling the modern `` frowny '', but including a dot for the nose -- in lipstick on her mirror, before being interrupted. In 1953 and 1958, similar happy faces were used in promotional campaigns for the films Lili and Gigi. The WMCA 1962 sweatshirt The smiley was first introduced to popular culture as part of a promotion by New York radio station WMCA beginning in 1962. Listeners who answered their phone `` WMCA Good Guys ! '' were rewarded with a `` WMCA good guys '' sweatshirt that incorporated a happy face into its design. Thousands of these sweatshirts were given away. The WMCA smiley was yellow with black dots as eyes, but it had a slightly crooked smile instead of a full smile, and no creases in the mouth. According to the Smithsonian Institution, the smiley face as we know it today was created by Harvey Ross Ball, an American graphic artist. In 1963, Harvey Ball was employed by State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts ( now known as Hanover Insurance ) to create a happy face to raise the morale of the employees. Ball created the design in ten minutes and was paid $45 ( equivalent to US $330 in 2012 currency ). His rendition, with bright yellow background, dark oval eyes, full smile and creases at the sides of the mouth, was imprinted on more than fifty million buttons and became familiar around the world. The design is so simple that it is certain that similar versions were produced before 1963, including those cited above. However, Ball 's rendition, as described here, has become the most iconic version. In 1967, Seattle graphic artist George Tenagi drew his own version at the request of advertising agent, David Stern. Tenagi 's design was used in an advertising campaign for Seattle - based University Federal Savings & Loan. The ad campaign was inspired by Charles Strouse ' lyrics in `` Put on a Happy Face '' from the musical Bye Bye Birdie. Stern, the man behind this campaign, incorporated the Happy Face in his run for Seattle mayor in 1993. Beat Dis by Bomb the Bass ( 1988 ) features the `` bloodied '' version of the popular smiley icon. The graphic was further popularized in the early 1970s by Philadelphia brothers Bernard and Murray Spain, who seized upon it in September 1970 in a campaign to sell novelty items. The two produced buttons as well as coffee mugs, t - shirts, bumper stickers and many other items emblazoned with the symbol and the phrase `` Have a happy day '' ( devised by Gyula Bogar ), which mutated into `` Have a nice day ''. Working with New York button manufacturer NG Slater, some 50 million happy face badges were produced by 1972. In 1972, Frenchman Franklin Loufrani became the first person to legally trademark the smiley face. He used it to highlight the good news parts of the newspaper France Soir. He simply called the design `` Smiley '' and launched the Smiley Company. In 1996 Loufrani 's son Nicolas Loufrani took over the family business and transformed it into a huge multinational corporation. Nicolas was outwardly skeptical of Harvey Ball 's claim to creating the first smiley face. After all, the design that his father came up with and Ball 's design were nearly identical. Loufrani argued that the design is so simple that no one person can lay claim to having created it. As evidence for this, Loufrani 's website points to early cave paintings found in France ( 2500 BC ) that he claims are the first depictions of a smiley face. Loufrani also points to a 1960 radio ad campaign that reportedly made use of a similar design. In the UK, the happy face has been associated with psychedelic culture since Ubi Dwyer and the Windsor Free Festival in the 1970s and the electronic dance music culture, particularly with acid house, that emerged during the Second Summer of Love in the late 1980s. The association was cemented when the band Bomb the Bass used an extracted smiley from Watchmen on the centre of its Beat Dis hit single. In text Main article : Emoticon The earliest known smiley - like image in a written document was drawn by a Slovak notary to indicate his satisfaction with the state of his town 's municipal financial records in 1635. A disputed early use of the smiley in a printed text may have been in Robert Herrick 's poem To Fortune ( 1648 ), which contains the line `` Upon my ruines ( smiling yet : ) ''. Journalist Levi Stahl has suggested that this may have been an intentional `` orthographic joke '', while this occurrence is likely merely the colon placed inside parentheses rather than outside of them as is standard typographic practice today -- ( smiling yet ) :. There are citations of similar punctuation in a non-humorous context, even within Herrick 's own work. It is likely that the parenthesis was added later by modern editors. On the Internet, the smiley has become a visual means of conveyance that uses images. The first known mention on the Internet was on September 19, 1982, when Scott Fahlman from Carnegie Mellon University wrote : `` I propose that ( sic ) 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 : :-(. '' In Software, yellow graphical smileys have been used for many different purposes, including games. One of the earliest uses of smileys in chat systems was in Yahoo ! Messenger from 1998, where it can be seen in the user list next to each user, and it was also used as an icon for the application. In 2001, SmileyWorld launched the website `` The official Smiley dictionary '', with smileys proposed to replace ASCII emoticons ( i.e. emojis ). In November 2001, and later, smiley emojis inside the actual chat text was adopted by several chat systems, including Yahoo Messenger. The smiley is the printable version of characters 1 and 2 of ( black - and - white versions of ) codepage 437 ( 1981 ) of the first IBM PC and all subsequent PC compatible computers. For modern computers, all versions of Microsoft Windows after Windows 95 can use the smiley as part of Windows Glyph List 4, although some computer fonts miss some characters, and some characters can not be reproduced by programs not compatible with Unicode. It also appears in Unicode 's Basic Multilingual Plane. Unicode smiley characters : ☺ U + 263A Alt + 1 White Smiling Face ☻ U + 263B Alt + 2 Black Smiling Face Unicode also contains the `` sad '' face : ☹ U + 2639 White Frowning Face Licensing and legal issues Authentic Worcester - made smiley face, by Harvey Ball The rights to the Smiley trademark in one hundred countries are owned by the Smiley Company. Its subsidiary SmileyWorld Ltd, in London, headed by Nicolas Loufrani, creates or approves all the Smiley products sold in countries where it holds the trademark. The Smiley brand and logo have significant exposure through licensees in sectors such as clothing, home decoration, perfumery, plush, stationery, publishing, and through promotional campaigns. The Smiley Company is one of the 100 biggest licensing companies in the world, with a turnover of US $167 million in 2012. The first Smiley shop opened in London in the Boxpark shopping centre in December 2011. United States In 1997, Franklin Loufrani and Smiley World attempted to acquire trademark rights to the symbol ( and even to the word `` smiley '' itself ) in the United States. This brought Loufrani into conflict with Wal - Mart, which had begun prominently featuring a happy face in its `` Rolling Back Prices '' campaign over a year earlier. Wal - Mart responded first by trying to block Loufrani 's application, then later by trying to register the smiley face itself ; Loufrani in turn sued to stop Wal - Mart 's application, and in 2002 after the issue went to court, where it would languish for seven years before a decision. Wal - Mart began phasing out the smiley face on its vests and its website in 2006. Despite that, Wal - Mart sued an online parodist for alleged `` trademark infringement '' after he used the symbol ( as well as various portmanteaus of `` Wal - '', such as `` Walocaust '' ). The District Court found in favor of the parodist when in March 2008, the judge concluded that Wal - Mart 's smiley face logo was not shown to be `` inherently distinctive '' and that it `` has failed to establish that the smiley face has acquired secondary meaning or that it is otherwise a protectible trademark '' under U.S. law. In June 2010, Wal - Mart and the Smiley Company founded by Loufrani settled their 10 - year - old dispute in front of the Chicago federal court. The terms remain confidential. In 2016, Wal - Mart brought back the smiley face on its website, social media profiles, and in selected stores. See also Acid2 Emoji Emoticon Galle ( Martian crater ) Kolobok Mr. Yuk Pac - Man ( character ) Red John References Jump up ^ Jon Savage ( February 21, 2009 ). `` Smiley Face Design History ''. Retrieved October 5, 2016. Jump up ^ Michaelangelo Matos ( December 21, 2016 ). `` A Brief History of the Smiley Face, Rave Culture 's Most Ubiquitous Symbol ''. Retrieved May 1, 2017. Jump up ^ Lim, Brian ( July 23, 2015 ). `` The Evolution of Rave Fashion ''. Retrieved May 1, 2017. Jump up ^ Google Ngram Viewer : smilies vs smileys Jump up ^ Google Ngram Viewer : smilie vs smiley Jump up ^ Borschel - Dan, Amanda ( 2017 - 07 - 19 ). `` History 's ' oldest smile ' found on 4,000 - year - old pot in Turkey ''. The Times of Israel. Retrieved 2017 - 07 - 28. Jump up ^ Ingmarbergman.se. A still from the scene. Jump up ^ Alastair Sooke ( February 3, 2012 ), `` Smiley 's People ( Radio 4 ) : The million dollar smile '', The Telegraph, ( Loufrani ) points out that a smiley face was a key feature of a well - known promotional campaign for a radio network on America 's East Coast in the late Fifties. ^ Jump up to : Honan, William H. ( April 14, 2001 ). `` H.R. Ball, 79, Ad Executive Credited With happy Face ''. The New York Times. Retrieved August 29, 2009. ^ Jump up to : Doug Lennox, illustrated by Catriona Wight ( 2004 ), Now You Know More : The Book of Answers, Now You Know, 2 ( illustrated ed. ), Dundurn, p. 50, ISBN 9781550025309 Jump up ^ Stamp, Jimmy ( 13 March 2013 ). Who really invented the Smiley face. Washington DC : Smithsonian. Retrieved 29 May 2015. ^ Jump up to : Adams, Cecil ( 23 April 1993 ). `` Who invented the smiley face ? ''. The Straight Dope. Retrieved 18 April 2011. Jump up ^ `` web - Lame Adventures ''. lameadventures.com. Jump up ^ Peter Shapiro, `` Smiling Faces Sometimes '', in The Wire, issue 203, January 2001, pp. 44 -- 49. Jump up ^ Jimmy Stamp. `` Who Really Invented the Smiley Face ? ''. Smithsonian. Jump up ^ Votruba, Martin. `` 17th - century Emoji ''. Slovak Studies Program. University of Pittsburgh. Jump up ^ Madrigal, Alexis C. ( 14 April 2014 ). `` The First Emoticon May Have Appeared in... 1648 ''. The Atlantic. Retrieved 15 April 2014. Jump up ^ `` Emoticon : Robert Herrick 's 17th century poem `` To Fortune '' does not contain a smiley face. ``. Slate Magazine. Jump up ^ `` smileys, emoticons, typewriter art ''. Text Patterns - The New Atlantis. Jump up ^ Fahlman 's original message Retrieved October 27, 2013. Jump up ^ `` Smiley Lore : - ) ''. cmu.edu. Jump up ^ screenshot of smiley use on Atari 2600 Jump up ^ The smiley dictionary, as it looked in march 2001 Jump up ^ `` WGL Assistant v1. 1 : The Multilingual Font Manager ''. Archived from the original on 24 March 2008. Jump up ^ Announcing WGL Assistant. Announcement : WGL Assistant V1. 1 Beta available, comp. fonts, 27 July 1999, Microsoft Typography -- News archive. Jump up ^ wikibooks : Unicode / Character reference / 2000 - 2FFF Jump up ^ Crampton, Thomas ( 5 July 2006 ). `` Smiley Face Is Serious to Company ''. The New York Times. Jump up ^ `` Smiley Licensing Company Profile by ''. Licensing.biz. Archived from the original on February 29, 2012. Retrieved 2013 - 03 - 14. Jump up ^ http://www.rankingthebrands.com/PDF/Top%20125%20Global%20Licensors%202011,%20License%20Global.pdf Jump up ^ Giedrius Ivanauskas ( 2012 - 01 - 16 ). `` Boxpark Shoreditch : Interview with Nicolas Loufrani CEO of Smiley Made in Shoreditch - A Magazine About Style, Innovation, Dining, Nightlife and People in Shoreditch ''. Made in Shoreditch. Retrieved 2013 - 03 - 14. Jump up ^ `` Wal - Mart seeks smiley face rights ''. BBC News. 8 May 2006. Retrieved 2006 - 05 - 09. Jump up ^ Kabel, Mark ( October 22, 2006 ). `` Wal - Mart phasing out smiley face vests ''. Associated Press. Jump up ^ Williamson, Richard ( October 30, 2006 ). `` The last days of Wal - Mart 's smiley face ''. Adweek. Jump up ^ `` Smith v. Wal - Mart Stores, Inc. ''. Citizen Vox. 28 March 2008. The relevant text is in the Order granting summary judgment : Timothy C. Batten, Sr., `` ORDER '' ( 03 / 21 / 2008 ) ``, section `` B. Threshold Issue : Trademark Ownership '', case `` 1 : 06 - cv - 00526 - TCB '', document 103, pages 15 - 19 Jump up ^ Sony, Astellas, Intel, Apple, Wal - Mart, Warner : Intellectual Property Victoria Slind - Flor, Jul 1, 2011, Bloomberg. The case is Loufrani v. Wal - Mart Stores Inc., 1 : 09 - cv - 03062, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois ( Chicago ). Jump up ^ Smith, Aaron ( 2016 - 06 - 02 ). `` Walmart 's Smiley is back after 10 years and a lawsuit ''. CNNMoney. Retrieved 2017 - 01 - 18. External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to : Smiley ( category ) History of the Acid House Smiley Face Modern Emoticon, emoji and smileys resource Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Smiley&oldid=800273708 '' Categories : Emoticons Face Pictograms Typographical symbols Hidden categories : Articles which use infobox templates with no data rows All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from August 2013 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Wikimedia Commons Azərbaycanca Bân - lâm - gú Беларуская Български Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Dolnoserbski Eesti Ελληνικά Español Euskara فارسی Français Galego 한국어 Հայերեն हिन्दी Hornjoserbsce Hrvatski Italiano עברית Кыргызча Limburgs Magyar Македонски Монгол မြန်မာဘာသာ Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Norsk nynorsk ଓଡ଼ିଆ Plattdüütsch Polski Português Русский Sicilianu Simple English Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska தமிழ் ไทย Türkçe Українська Vepsän kel ' ייִדיש 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 12 September 2017, at 14 : 06. 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Question: who owns the copyright to the smiley face
Answer: the Smiley Company