HE MADE THE WHOLE WORLD SMILE
The Harvey Ball Story
When three of Harvey Ball’s comrades were killed by a wayward shell as
they stood next to him in Okinawa during World War II, he did not
ponder if fate had saved him for a greater destiny. Harvey, a tall,
lanky, laconic Yankee from Worcester, Massachusetts, was not much given
to introspection, socializing, talking, or even smiling. But when he
died in 2001 at the age of 79, Harvey had figured out his purpose in
life. As he told People Magazine in 1998, “I taught the whole world
how to smile.”
Harvey Ball, born and raised in Worcester, was the creator of the
Smiley Face--that round yellow image that now beams out from Wal-Mart
ads, Joe Boxer shorts and internet icons J. When, in December of 1963,
he picked up a black pen and a yellow piece of paper and drew the
world’s first Smiley Face, Harvey, a self-employed commercial artist,
was working on an assignment from a Worcester insurance company
suffering from employee discontent after a merger. They wanted a
campaign and buttons to raise company morale. They ordered 100 yellow
Smiley Face buttons and then, when those disappeared almost over night,
they ordered 10,000 more.
Harvey later figured out that his compensation for creating the Smiley
Face button for the Worcester Mutual Insurance Company added up to
about $45. When the lawyers for the company tried to copyright the
image eight years later, they learned that it was impossible, because
the image, reproduced 50 million times in the year 1971 alone, was in
the public domain. By the mid-seventies, according to the curators of
the WorcesterHistoricalMuseum, the image had fallen out of favor.
But Smiley made a significant comeback in the late 1980’s when interest
in acid and other psychedelic drugs became a major cultural phenomenon.
The icon was embraced by trendy downtown club kids. Those who grew up
in the 1970’s—today’s most desirable consumer demographic —view the
image with nostalgia. (Some of them also think it was created by
Forrest Gump, the fictional movie character.) When votes were taken by
the U.S. Post Office for icons to represent the decade of the 1970’s,
the most popular image by far was Smiley, whose stamp was issued in
1999.
Brothers Murray and Bernard Spain of Philadelphia added the phrase
“Have a Happy Day” and took in one million dollars in sales of Smiley
products in the first six months of 1971 alone. In 1998, French
Businessman Franklin Loufrani claimed that HE had created the image in
1971, and he proceeded to trademark the face in 80 countries. When
faced with Harvey Ball’s earlier creation, Loufrani replied with a
Gallic shrug: “I don’t care if he designed the Smiley face. We
promote, we own, we market.” Today Wal-Mart and Loufrani’s company
“SmileyWorld” are battling in the courts for the right to use the
Smiley Face as a trademark in the U.S. and a decision is expected soon.
Riled up by “the France guy” as he put it, Harvey in 1999 created
World Smile Day—the first Friday in October-- to promote the true
meaning of the Smiley Face. And he trademarked it. Five percent of the
gross profit made from selling genuine Harvey Ball products under the
name of the World Smile Corporation goes to charities focusing on the
needs of children.
Every reporter who interviewed Harvey Ball asked him the same question:
was he angry that he never made more than $45 from the creation that
could have made him very, very rich? To every reporter he patiently
gave pretty much the same reply: “Hey, I can only eat one steak at a
time, drive one car at a time. I’m not ticked off about it. I don’t
mind getting up in the morning and going to work. They ask me why I’m
not upset. I just get satisfaction from it being so widely used and
that it has given so many people pleasure.”
After Harvey died in 2001 in Worcester, his son, Charles, said : “He
was proud and pleased to have served his country and raise a family…He
died with no apologies and no regrets. His moral compass stayed on
north and never wavered.”
Even though he didn’t want to profit from it, Harvey Ball did want
recognition for creating the image whose smile has been called more
famous than the Mona Lisa’s. He said “Smiley is one of the greatest
pieces of art ever created, as simple as it is. It’s got a very, very
positive message. Anybody can use it and reproduce it and it reaches
everybody regardless of language, religion, nationality, all those
things--as compared to some of the art you get today which you haven’t
the faintest idea of what you’re looking at…I’m glad Smiley came from
Worcester. The city should make more of it. Because no other city has
this.”
On Friday, Oct. 13, 2006, the WorcesterHistoricalMuseum is taking
Harvey at his word and throwing the first annual Harvey Ball in the
city’s newly restored Union Station. Its purpose is to bring the
Smiley Face home and to tell the world that, along with barbed wire,
shredded wheat, the monkey wrench, the diner, the birth control pill,
the valentine, and Abbie Hoffman, Worcester also produced Harvey Ball
and the Smiley Face. The event will coincide with an exhibit at the
Museum, featuring art, artifacts and photographs with the Smiley Face
theme. This exhibit, which will also highlight Worcester's history with
Smiley, will open to the public on World Smile Day, Friday Oct. 6, and
the exhibit's opening party will be the night before (Thursday Oct. 5.)
The Harvey Ball and dinner on Oct. 13 will include the presentation of
the annual Harvey Ball Award to the person who has made Worcester smile
during the past year—this year it’s Richard B. Kennedy, President and
CEO of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce. The dress code is
“everything from black tie to tie-dye”, the music from the ’60’s and
70’s. A silent auction will feature high-end art, luxury items and
fashions created around the Smiley Face theme, including a rare, signed
original Harvey Ball Smiley Face drawing. For more information,
contact the WorcesterHistoricalMuseum at 508-753-8278 or