Yellow Smiley with Braces

Yellow smiley face button with teeth and braces.

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.

Braces are dental tools that are used to help straighten the teeth. Typically, they are put on teenagers, but adults can get braces, too. Brackets are attached to each tooth with a wire that aligns and unifies the teeth. Slowly over time, the teeth are straightened and are then removed. New technological advances sometimes use 3-D printed plastic and 3-D modeling to create aligners rather than attach wires to the teeth, however, this is not cost effective and the metal is more typically used.