Bye french guy text message clip art3/13/2024 If you put it in a nursery setting…It fits in well. Perhaps Watchman artist Dave Gibbons best explains the mystique of the smiley: “It’s just a yellow field with three marks on it. 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. Its meaning has changed with social and cultural values: from the optimistic message of a 1960s 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. The simple yellow smiley face created in 1963 (probably) has led to tens of thousands of variations and has appeared on everything from pillows and posters to perfume and pop art. 1, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Gibbons (published by DC Comics) On his company’s website, they prove this idea by showing what they claim to be the world’s first smiley face, a stone carving found in a French cave that dates to 2500 BC, as well as a smiley face graphic used for promotion by a New York radio station in 1960. Loufrani argues that the design of the smiley is so basic it can’t be credited to anyone. The company has taken a simple graphic gesture and transformed it into an enormous business as well as a corporate ideology that places a premium on “positivity.” As for the American origin of the smiley, Nicolas Loufrani is skeptical of Harvey’s claim on the design even though, as evident in the above image, his father’s original newspaper icon is almost identical to Ball’s mark, idiosyncrasies and all. Today, the Smiley Company makes more than $130 million a year and is one of the top 100 licensing companies of the world. He formalized the mark with a style guide and further distributed it through global licensing agreements including, perhaps most notably, some of the earliest graphic emoticons. In 1996, Loufrani’s son Nicolas took over the family business and transformed it into an empire. Although it seems clear that Ball has the strongest claim to the second most iconic smile in history, there’s much more to the story. Neither Ball nor State Mutual tried to trademark or copyright the design. The image proliferated and was of course endlessly imitated but according to Bill Wallace, Executive Director of the Worcester Historical Museum, the authentic Harvey Ball-designed smiley face could always be identified by its distinguishing features: the eyes are narrow ovals, one larger than the other, and the mouth is not a perfect arc but “almost like a Mona Lisa Mouth.” It’s uncertain whether or not the new logo boosted morale, but the smiling face was an immediate hit and the company produced thousands of buttons. The State Mutual Life Assurance Company (now Allmerica Financial Corporation) made posters, buttons, and signs adorned with the jaundiced grin in the attempt to get their employees to smile more. Ball finished the design in less than 10 minutes and was paid $45 for his work. Ball came up with the image in 1963 when he was commissioned to create a graphic to raise morale among the employees of an insurance company after a series of difficult mergers and acquisitions. It’s largely accepted that the original version of the familiar smiley face was first created 50 years ago in Worcester, Massachusetts by the late Harvey Ross Ball, an American graphic artist and ad man. There was, however, a graphic designer, some devious salesmen, and an ambitious newspaper man – all add up to a surprisingly complex history for such a simple graphic. There was no cross-country runner or struggling t-shirt salesman, there was no truck or mud puddle. And thus, an icon was born.Īs you probably expect, that was not how the iconic smiley face was created. He wipes his face on a yellow T-shirt and hands it back to the down-on-his-luck entrepreneur, telling him to “have a nice day.” The imprint of Gump’s face left a perfect, abstract smiling face on the bright yellow t-shirt. In the 1994 Robert Zemeckis film, Forrest Gump stumbles into the history books as he runs across the country.Īt one point, he meets a poor T-shirt salesman who, Gump recalls, “wanted to put my face on a T-shirt but he couldn’t draw that well and he didn’t have a camera.” As luck would have it, a truck drives by and splashes Gump’s face with mud. An original Harvey Ball smiley face (image: The World Smiley Foundation)
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