World Smile Day
Next: October 1, 2027
Help one person smile.
The story
Where it comes from
World Smile Day was created in 1999 by Harvey Ball, the Worcester, Massachusetts artist who drew the yellow smiley face in 1963. An insurance company had asked him for a symbol to lift staff morale; he finished it in about ten minutes and was paid 45 dollars. Ball called the day his 'other really good idea', and set it on the first Friday of October as a day for good cheer and good works. Since his death in 2001 it has been looked after by the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation.
How it's celebrated
The day's motto is 'Do an act of kindness. Help one person smile.' That can be as small as buying a stranger's coffee, leaving a kind note for a colleague or sending a card for no particular reason. The Foundation uses the day to support small, grass-roots charitable efforts that otherwise receive little attention or funding.
Did you know
- Neither Ball nor the insurance company ever tried to trademark or copyright the original smiley face.
- Ball's original can be told apart by its eyes, narrow ovals of slightly different sizes, and a mouth that is not a perfect arc.
- Shigetaka Kurita designed a set of 176 emoji for NTT DOCOMO in Japan in 1999, including smiling faces. The set is now in New York's Museum of Modern Art, but it was not the first emoji set.
Coming up next
- International Day of Non-Violence · October 2, 2027
- Hari Batik Nasional · October 2, 2027
- Gaecheonjeol (National Foundation Day) · October 3, 2027
- Pierre Bonnard's Birthday · October 3, 2027
- World Animal Day · October 4, 2027
- World Teachers' Day · October 5, 2027