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Harvey Ross Ball (10 July 1921 – 12 April 2001)
is famous for his invention of the Smiley.

Harvey Ball was born and raised in Worcester,
Massachusetts, USA.  During his time as a student
at South High School, he became an apprentice to
local sign painter, and later attended Worcester
Art Museum School, where he studied fine arts.

Harvey Ball served 27 years in the United States
National Guard|National Guard, and was based in
Asia and the Pacific during World War II. He
retired as a Brigadier General in 1973 and then
served six years in the Army Reserves. He retired
as a full colonel in 1979. Ball was awarded the
Bronze Star for heroism during the Battle of
Okinawa. He was awarded the Veteran of the Year
award from the Worcester Veterans Council in 1999.

After World War II, Harvey Ball worked for a local
advertising firm until he started his own
business, Harvey Ball Advertising, in 1959.

The invention of the Smiley came about in 1962.
The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of
Worcester, MA (now known as Allmerica Financial)
purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. The
merger resulted in low employee morale. In an
attempt to solve this, Harvey Ball was employed in
1963 as a freelance artist to create a smiley face
to be used on buttons, desk cards, and posters. In
less then ten minutes the smiley face was
complete. The use of the smiley face was part of
the company's friendship campaign where as State
Mutual handed out 100 smiley pins to employees.
The aim was to get employees to smile while using
the phone, and doing other tasks. The buttons were
highly popular, with orders in lots of 10,000. 
More than 50 million Smiley Face buttons were sold
by 1971, and the smiley has been described as an
international icon.

Ball never applied for a trademark or copyright of
the smiley and earned just $45 for his work. 
State Mutual, similarly, did not make any money
from the design. Ball's son, Charles Ball is
reported to have said his father never regretted
not registering the copyright. The Telegram and
Gazette of Worcester reported Charles Ball as
saying "he was not a money-driven guy, he used to
say, 'Hey, I can only eat one steak at a time,
drive one car at a time'".

The associated "Have a Nice Day" tag line was not
part of the original design. Brothers Bernard and
Murray Spain later trademarked the line and the
smiley face design in the early 1970s. The Spain
brothers and later marketers earned millions of
dollars from Harvey’s initial icon.

The World Smile Corporation was founded by Harvey
Ball. The corporation licenses Smileys and
organizes World Smile Day. World Smile Day raises
money for the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation,
a non-profit charitable trust which supports
children's causes. World Smile Day is held on the
first Friday of October each year and is a day
dedicated to "good cheer and good works". The
catch phrase for the day is "Do an act of kindness
- help one person smile".

Harvey Ball died on April 12, 2001 as a result of
liver failure following a short illness. He was 79
years old. He is survived by his wife, Winifred,
three sons and a daughter. He has a number of
grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

==External link==
http://www.worldsmile.com/