Jimmy Carter Teeth Smiley

Green button with the illustration of a smiley face with big teeth meant to be Jimmy Carter's smile

Jimmy Carter was the President of the United States of America from 1977 to 1981. He sought to find peaceful solutions to problems and therefore received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Unfortunately, Carter was unable to serve a second term as President due to the continued issue of inflation and that U.S. Embassy members were being held as hostages in Iran during the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Carter was able to solve the current unemployment problem during his term and claimed an increase of about eight million jobs. Carter wanted to create a Government that was “competent and compassionate.” The color green was used in all of Carter's campaign items.

The classic yellow smiley face is comprised of a yellow circle, two black dots for eyes, and a black arc ending in serifs for a mouth. It was designed in 1963 by commercial artist, Harvey Ross Ball. Ball was commissioned by The State Mutual Life Insurance Company to create a happy face to raise the morale of their employees. His version was created in 10 minutes. The design was printed onto more than 50 million buttons. Neither Ball nor the company copyrighted this smiley, so it was continually used by other businesses in their promotions.
The design and concept is quite simple and was definitely used before Ball’s 1963 version. However, his has become the most iconic. Variations have been used for advertising campaigns and in popular culture ever since.