# Ever wonder about Smileys?



## Yuray (Nov 13, 2010)

Article found at Smileyfaceclipart.org

*A Brief History of Smiley Face Clip Art Icons *

This article will state a short yet useful explanation on the history of smiley icons their evolution. Let’s get started, shall we?

The first ever illustrated style of yellow smiley face with two simple black dots for eyes with a single line half-moon shaped mouth can first be traced back to advertising materials produced by Harvey Ball 1964 in Worcester, MA. There was a specific intention why he did this; it was for a client who was attempting to ease the transition of two companies following a merger. No, he didn’t just make it for fun.

However, that’s not the beginning of smiley icons. The first recorded use of combinations of characters and symbols to represent emotions was in 1857 when people used Morse code, particularly, the number 73 which stood for love and kisses. Later in 1881 “Puck”, an American magazine started printing character based emotions on a regular basis. One of the first widely used smiley icons was “:-J” which represented “tongue in cheek”.

The first occurrence of the use of smiley icons on the internet was from Scott Falman who implemented the use of the smiley face symbols “” and “:-(” on his message boards to represent of one is simply joking or serious, since much confusion was occurring on the message boards.

Nowadays, smiley icons have become very widespread in digital communication, most instant messengers, email providers, and forums support the use of smileys either by having a menu of smileys present for easy implementation or automatically converting character sequences into images. Although smiley icons are mostly accepted among teenage girls, it is used by almost everyone in every age group. This is not surprising since 90% of human communication is non verbal.

The trademark to the yellow smiley icons is claimed by a lot of people and companies, including the mighty Wal-mart. In 2006 Wal-mart used the icon in a popular advertising campaign and attempted to claim the copyright to the image in the USA but is then lost a court case in 2008, when the judge determined that they do not own the trademark to this image. Wal-mart then removed the image from its advertising campaigns and website. Who knew much history is involved from a simple smiling face? Now, that’s something awesome!


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## Retired (Nov 13, 2010)

> the number 73 which stood for love and kisses



Not correct!

As a licensed Ham radio operator, I can tell you 73 stands for Best Regards, while 88 stands for Love and Kisses in morse code.   Sending the letters for HI are sent to represent a laugh, because of the letter structur in code which is .... ..  

Smileys were also used in teletype communications, the fore runner of digital communication as we know it today.

Steve, VA3VH


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## Yuray (Nov 13, 2010)

Thanks Steve.
I can't believe the internet was wrong on that one. How odd

_.__  .._  ._.  ._  _._ _   call sign   NIMBY


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