SmileyForFree.com

Smiley face symbols and the origin of smileys and emoticons.

These new communication technologies have led to the creation of a new symbolic language called the ‘Emoticon’ where symbols are used to communicate emotion & feelings.

Emoticons were first popularized by instant messaging clients, and is part of the attempt to make the internet more human and allow people to better express themselves. Online chat is a rather impersonal way to communicate as there is no way to know what the person on the other end is feeling since you cannot see the other persons face or hear the expression in their voice.

The familiar round “smiley face” or “happy face” with bright yellow background, oval eyes and parentheses-shaped creases at the sides of the mouth first appeared in 1963 and was created by advertising artist Harvey Ball for an insurance company that wanted to improve employee morale.

The concepts of the Smiley face and Emoticons merged when chat programs added the capability to automatically convert emoticons into various types of Smileys that represented a wide variety of emotions. Smileys in various forms became “Winkys”, “Frownies”, “Angries” and many more variations. Soon animated & also 3-D Smileys appeared.

Since Harvey Ball never copyrighted his original Happy Face it enabled thousands of artists to create the innumerable versions of the Smiley in every possible emotion and artistic style.