Harvey Ross Ball (10 July 1921 – 12 April 2001) is the earliest known designer of the Smiley.^[1]

Harvey Ball was born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts. 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.

His design of the Smiley came about in 1963. The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now known as Hanover Insurance) 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 than ten minutes the smiley face was complete.