The story of the yellow smiley face

I often muse upon the whole ‘What did the first person to do X really think?’ thing. You know, the first person to discover fire, the first person to speak a primitive word, the first person to daub a smiley face on a cave wall.

The yellow smiley face symbol is now ubiquitous, especially since 63 per cent of us use emojis in our everyday lives.

It’s been around for years but ‘officially’ since 1963 when it was created by graphic artist Harvey Ross Ball to raise the morale of employees at the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts.

This iconic and enduring design was created in just 10 minutes and earned him $45 ($371 dollars today). Amazing how something that is now part of our everyday lives globally was created in just 600 seconds.

Martha, The Colour File x

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