Commercial artist Harvey Ball created this popular icon over half a century ago.
Harvey Ball was commissioned by a Massachusetts life insurance company to solve an employee morale problem that was the result of a recent corporate merger.* It took him a little over five minutes to create the smiley face, having drawn one eye larger than the other. This simple and effective solution, likely inspired by numerous prior uses of drawn happy faces, made the life insurance executives smile.** Harvey Ball was paid only forty-five dollars for this image that would quickly become an internationally recognized icon.* Neither Mr. Ball nor the life insurance company profited from this design.* Neither party ever filed for a copyright, making the smiley face an early form of an open-source social meme, going global without the benefit of worldwide social media.* This design quickly became an advertising and marketing mainstay.* The smiley face inspired the original emoticon.* And of course, as we all know, emoticons evolve into today's world of social media emojis.*
Have a nice day!*
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