Telephone Smiley

Illustration of a smiley with a black phone on a blue background

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.

The rotary dial phone operates with pulse dialing. The caller chooses the numbers one at a time on a wheel that rotates. The receiver and microphone are built into one handset which has a cord that attaches to the rotary phone’s base that is plugged into the wall.