We were lucky to catch up with Leonard “Porkchop” Zimmerman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Leonard “Porkchop” , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The HAPPY Campaign
The story you are about to read is true. HOWEVER, this is the Cliff Notes’ version.
i’m a graphic designer by day, and a visual artist the rest of the time. I go by the name Porkchop, which was a nickname my partner of almost eight years called me. In 2006, after 10 weeks in the hospital, he passed away and I fell into depression, self-medicating to hold what was left of my life together. One day I realized that if I was ever going to be happy again, it was solely my responsibility. It took many years of using art as therapy and constantly looking for the good in the world to turn my life around.
Time jump six years later! It was October 2012 – an election year — the general feeling in the air was not kindness. I was done with the workday; it was already dark outside, and I was trying to think of what I could do to bring in some light. What could I do as a graphic designer? What message would I want to put out there? What one word could make somebody smile?
That night I quickly designed a poster. It was intentionally rough, so that it wouldn’t look like a professional did it. Took that long way home and posted up five yellow posters with a smiling robot head and the word “HAPPY”, then went home. Why “HAPPY” and not “SMILE”? Have you ever smiled at a stranger when they told you to? That makes more people angry. Over the next day or so, I noticed they were disappearing, So I printed a few more and put those up, thinking that would be the end of it. When more went missing, I just figured they were being thrown away, but they weren’t. People were taking them home.
I had a friend who owned some small billboards, and after Thanksgiving dinner, I sent him a text and asked him how much it would cost to put up a billboard with the HAPPY artwork, and since I wasn’t advertising anything, and it was just a positive community thing he didn’t charge me any fees except the printing of the billboards and installation. I figured I could afford to do three billboards.
I had been talking to a friend of mine who owns a pottery business about the billboards, and without my knowledge, he made some phone calls and was able to double the number of billboards being put up. The kindness was moving forward, and the message was getting seen. As we approached December, I switched up the illustration and put a Santa Hat on the robot and went from yellow to red. That doesn’t sound like much, but it was a snowball rolling downhill.
Graphic designers can make anything, or know, at least that you can put words and images on anything, So, it seemed like buttons would be a good next step in sharing some happiness in Downtown, Augusta. Buttons were pretty inexpensive; so, I ordered a few hundred and just left them in place — tables outside restaurants, business windowsills, with a tip if I was dining out. The buttons became something that people began trying to find.
The first year there were only three different colored HAPPY buttons made. The next year the number of variations doubled. What could I do next? How do I get the message out farther? Could it go global? The HAPPY robot did have a posse at that point, so I went for stickers.
Matthew Hoffman had a good idea with his “You Are Beautiful” stickers where you could purchase them and have them mailed to you, OR you could send in a self-addressed-stamped-envelope, and he would send you five back FREE. I thought I’d try the latter method with the S.A.S.E for HAPPY. At this point, the posters and buttons had always been given away at no charge. It only made sense to stay true to the path we were on. I got a p.o. box and shared the address via social media. It didn’t happen overnight, but envelopes started coming in, and those stickers started going around the world. I would get emails or text messages with photos of HAPPY sightings in other cities, and then they started coming in from other countries. (A side note, I did contact Mr Hoffman and tell him about HAPPY and following his distribution model for decals)
It was 2014, and I was asked to share my story and HAPPY during a TEDx event. I’m not a public speaker. I’d rather be the wallpaper, than a person in the room. I gave my TEDx talk and several. months later it went online. It was now the summer of 2015, and someone that I had recently met via social media, Michael Patrick Mckinley reached out to me with a proposition. He wanted to turn my story into a documentary. With my permission, crowd funding from my hometown and other folks from around the world, “HAPPY: A Small Film With a Big Smile” premiered July 16, 2016 and for the next few years would participate in film festivals as close as New York, and as far away London, and winning awards along the way. I had only been doing the HAPPY thing for a few years, but I had been doing it constantly and consistently.
In 2022, HAPPY celebrated its first decade. And I can say that I still have the p.o. box and fulfill sticker requests as they come in. The mail is a lot slimmer than it used to be, and I have thought about quietly stopping it. But honestly, I’d miss it if I didn’t do it. Folks There are still people who collect the new buttons whenever they come out (which is several times a month.)
And to date, I have no exact count on how many different button designs there are, but Purebuttons.com is the official button maker of HAPPY. What started out as a simple way to give a quick smile, grew organically because most people have a bit of kindness in themselves.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Cum Laude, in 1994. Those 4 years went by so fast. But it wasn’t work, it was fun. I truly enjoy typography, the tetris of organization that is known as graphic design. Right after college I went on to do music packaging freelance. I also worked at SCAD’s in house print shop. I soon was hired by a company that had just moved to Hilton Head with liquor and theme park clients. The work was fun and won a lot of awards. I was young and changed jobs every time someone offered me more money. However, the projects and the clients I was working with were not as fun. This gig was losing it’s luster. I was living in Atlanta when 9.11 happened. That day shook a lot of apple carts and the company I was working for closed the division I was part of. I ended up unemployed and not happy. Luckily.a head hunter got me a gig with a very large company that had offices all over the place and luckily one just outside of Atlanta. It basically was a well run sweat shop for a home improvement chain. That gig went well for a couple of years but then Dejavu kicked in and I was 1 of many, in many lay-0ff waves.

Jump forward to present day and i am happily employed, and have been working in the same field for 30 years. Some of the important things I have learned in advertising are: Don’t have a client you don’t believe in. Don’t sell something that doesn’t work. Don’t make promises that aren’t true. Speak in the voice that is your clients. Always, ALWAYS take the high road. And be nice to those you meet along the way. And don’t work with a client who you don’t get along with. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life, or at work.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

It’s pretty simple: Money does not equal happiness. Do work that makes you happy.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Seeing my work out there in the wild. My mom likes to point at things and say “my son did that”… and that’s fine, but i like to quietly observe peoples honest reactions/interactions with my work.

Contact Info:

• Website: makemyporkchop.com. and happydocmovie.com to watch the Documentary for free online.
• Instagram: pantone811
• Facebook: Leonard Porkchop Zimmerman
• Other: For HAPPY stickers:
  HAPPY
  P.O. Box 501, Augusta, GA 30903

Image Credits

image with the paint thrown and movie poster images by Brent Cline