Born in 1972 to spread feel-good news, THE Smiley BRAND celebrates 50 years through a series of collaborations with some of the most exciting brands across fashion, lifestyle, home and beauty.

Initially trademarked 50 years ago by French journalist Franklin Loufrani, Smiley is one of the most recognisable icons in graphic design. With a cultural influence ranging from Talking Heads to Nirvana, Acid House to DC Comics, Banksy to Murakami, Smiley has grown to become an international lifestyle brand with over 400 global partners and continues to inspire leading creatives across the worlds of art, fashion, film, music, print and pop culture.

As part of the lead-up to The Smiley Company’s 50th anniversary in 2022, an animated short was produced to show why defiant optimism is the way we manifest a better future in 2022 – and beyond. Charting Smiley’s near-50-year trajectory as an icon of both popular culture and the subversive underground, the animated story, showed why the world’s most recognised beacon of positivity has always served as a bulwark against doomsayers and dystopian visions. In the film, audiences are reminded to see the forest from the trees by tuning out negativity, celebrating life’s triumphs, and realising a better future – still unwritten – is only imagined through more creativity, positivity and coming together. Click the image below to watch.

Through partnerships with designers from luxury to sport & street, beauty, design and advertising; Smiley continues to embrace collaboration as an opportunity to spread this important message. That is why so many like-minded, creative, caring and innovative brands choose Smiley to develop products, promotions and marketing campaigns. Because the brand values are universal and by adapting this message to audiences with exclusive concepts, Smiley always remains fresh and relevant. Ambitious, authentic, and forward-thinking brand partners harness the power of the smile to lead the world toward a future we all want to be part of; a defiantly optimistic one.

To mark this milestone anniversary, Smiley enlisted renowned graffiti artist André Saraiva to reimagine the iconic Smiley logo. Active in the early Parisian graffiti movement, Andre became widely recognised for his cartoonish characters and his alter ego Mr A, which quickly became his signature design and an iconic character in the fashion and art world appearing across six continents. When approaching the redesign of the logo, Saraiva wanted to capture the essence of boundless positivity at the core of the Smiley brand. Created as original works of art in his Paris studio, the final design and the positive message it seeks to communicate is particularly resonant following a period of unprecedented change. Merging both icons, Mr A and the Smiley face, Saraiva has created a truly unique design to celebrate the brand anniversary with his signature spray cans.

Street Art Manifesto for Positivity 

Conveying both this collaboration and the 50th anniversary in a truly subversive fashion, Smiley ran a guerilla fly postering campaign across nine major global cities, as part of the street art manifesto for positivity. This street art campaign was heavily featured in French dance music powerhouse David Guetta’s music video for ‘Silver Screen’. Speaking on the collaboration, Guetta explained “The video for my ‘Silver Screen’ rework with Felix Da Housecat and KITTIN’ captures the Smiley message of happiness and bringing people together perfectly. The upbeat track combined with artwork from graffiti-maestro André Saraiva and appearances from Dude With A Sign results in a video that I hope will make people smile.” 

To mark International Day of Happiness 2022, the Smiley logo was projected onto some of the most iconic cultural landmarks around the world.  Adapted to the colours of the Ukrainian flag as a show of solidarity, this guerilla activity, as part of Smiley’s street art manifesto for positivity was dedicated to the people and communities taking positive action in support of Ukraine.

Since its inception over 50 years ago, Smiley’s mission has been to spread good news. Despite difficult times, Smiley has always believed in the power of a smile to help manifest a better future. That’s why International Day of Happiness was chosen, to smile in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

The blue and yellow icon generated far-reaching mainstream press and global TV coverage after it was projected in London, Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Rome and Sydney! Watch the footage on YouTube. Read more about global solidarity and humanitarian support for Ukraine, as well as ways to donate on the Smiley Movement website.

Brand collaborations 

In celebration of the anniversary, Sarah Andelman, co-founder of the legendary Parisian concept store colette has come on board to curate over 50 halo partnerships across 12 product categories. This includes creative fashion, design, beauty and FMCG collaborations by world-famous brands including Raf Simons, Sandro, Karl Lagerfeld, Market, Reebok and Dsquared2.

These brands have designed a unique iteration of their most iconic products using a style guide created from Andre Saraiva’s artworks and these will be displayed and sold as part of Smiley’s takeovers of some of the world’s most influential department stores and retail chains. These include Galeries Lafayette (Paris, Beijing and Shanghai), Nordstrom (USA), Cidade Jardim (Sao Paolo), El Palacio de Hierro (Mexico City) and Urban Outfitters (London, Manchester, Amsterdam, Milan, Copenhagen Barcelona, Glasgow and Antwerp). These unique retail experiences feature collaborations from a selection of 65 major designs and brands, offering collector products based on the works of art created by André Saraiva.

Since its inception, Smiley’s mission has been to spread good news and the founding mantra of ‘Take the Time to Smile’ feels more relevant than ever in 2022.

Nicolas Loufrani, Smiley CEO, comments: “After the challenging last couple of years, what better way to navigate out of these times with this campaign that aims to reverse a global smile deficit, spread positivity and fill the world with smiles in 2022. This campaign has proved that Smiley’s unique, creative and positive symbolism continues to inspire some of the most influential artists, brands and tastemakers across the globe.”