Show How You Feel With Smiley Face Emoticons

An emoticon is a graphic representation of how an author feels. Therefore smiley face emoticons are normally used to show the reader that the person writing the post is pleased about something or happy to make their post. Here are some more details and info on smiley face emoticons.

Although emoticons used nowadays are of digital form, they were originally used back in the 19th century most often in casual or humorous writings. The first use of a digital emoticon began in 1982 and their use has grown extensively ever since.

As a matter of fact, in reviewing a transcript from an Abraham Lincoln speech a :) character was found. It is not certainly if this was intentional to show a smile of if it was merely a typo.

The smiley face emoticons developed from the original smiley face of 1963. This was a yellow circle with two black dots representing the eyes and an upturned thick curve which represented the mouth. It was created by a freelance artist named Harvey Ball and was originally used for a marketing campaign from an insurance company which was designed to boost the morale of its employees. It was a huge hit and eventually inspired the development of the smiley face emoticon. This is in fact the most basic of the emoticons and it is in fact a small yellow smiley face.

In current practice, the smiley face emoticons come in several different versions. There is a classic smiley face and then there are normally several different variations including a half smile, slanted smile, big smile with open mouth, and a sly smile with someone wearing sunglasses.

These emoticons are normally produced in compatible graphic file formats like .png or .gif. These can be downloaded for free from a variety of sites and used in programs like Word or other Microsoft Office products.

Most forums which allow postings have emoticon capabilities built in. The authors can therefore use a smiley face emoticon or one of its variations. They are very effective in helping to provide emphasis or encourage friendly exchange of ideas or information.

If someone uses a smiley face emoticon, it immediately implies that they are trying to be friendly and helpful. This does a great deal to enhance good discussion and exchange of ideas.

There are other emoticons which can denote emotion like smiling. And these can be communicated through ASCII type text characters and not graphics. However the classic smiley face emoticon is a graphic file due to the shape and color of the emoticon.

In general this does have bigger impact and provides clearer communication of the emotion intended. It is tough not to understand what the yellow smiley face is trying to do – Be Friendly!