Walk the streets of Detroit long enough and you'll notice something. On building walls, basketball courts, gallery walls, and public spaces across the city, a signature appears again and again — a wide, hand-drawn smile and a pair of wonder-filled eyes that seem to follow you down the block. That mark belongs to Phillip Simpson, and if Detroit has a face right now, there's a good chance he painted it.

Simpson grew up on 7 Mile and Hoover, raised by a mother, grandmother, and a network of passionate educators who recognized his gift early and pushed him to develop it. He attended the University of Michigan, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts. But his real education has always been the city itself — its walls, its people, its resilience.

The Year Everything Changed

His artistic signature — those unmistakable wide smiles, the abstract figures rendered in lively hues — has been decades in the making. It traces back to a moment of loss. In 2009, Simpson co-founded Freshman Clothing with fellow artist Eric Lowry at 204 E. Grand River Avenue in Harmonie Park. The store was more than a retail space; it became a community gathering place for Detroit's young creatives. When Freshman closed in 2011 after just two years, it hit hard.

The Smile brand — and the philosophy behind it — was born not from celebration, but from a deliberate choice to pursue joy in difficult times. By 2012, Simpson had channeled that energy into something lasting: a brand, a mission, and a body of work that would grow to cover Detroit and reach institutions across the world.

I Got Your Back · Original painting · $900

We Are The Future · Mural · Detroit, 2023

Building Detroit, Wall by Wall

From 2015 to 2019, Simpson served as Gallery Director at The Baltimore Gallery in Detroit's Milwaukee-Junction neighborhood, where he promoted artists, built collector relationships, managed exhibitions, and mentored emerging talent. When the gallery closed, Simpson's trajectory didn't slow. If anything, it accelerated.

He became a prominent fixture at Murals in the Market, Detroit's annual festival that transforms Eastern Market into an outdoor gallery. He painted murals through the City of Detroit's City Walls program. His work began appearing not just on canvases, but on basketball courts, building facades, schools, hospitals, and corporate headquarters across the region.

Kindness as a Creative Creed

What sets Phillip Simpson apart from other muralists and painters isn't just the technical skill — the lively color, the meticulous texture, the abstract forms that radiate warmth from a distance. It's the philosophy baked into every stroke. He describes the Smile brand not as an instruction to be happy, but as an invitation to a relationship with kindness.

That ethos shows up in where he chooses to paint. Elementary schools. Boys & Girls Clubs. Community gardens. Voting awareness murals. A mural for Brilliant Detroit, the organization focused on literacy and early childhood learning. These are not high-art vanity projects. They are deliberate acts of care for neighborhoods that Simpson knows intimately, painted by a man who grew up in this city and intends to leave it more beautiful than he found it.

Smile Courts  ·  Monroe Street Midway, Detroit · 2021

Monroe Street Midway · Four Smile-designed courts · Detroit, 2021

From Detroit to Austria and Beyond

The awards followed the work. In 2018, Simpson was named a Salzburg Global Seminar Young Cultural Innovator Fellow — a distinction that placed his work in the permanent collection of the Salzburg Global Seminar in Austria. In 2016, he received a Knights Art Challenge Detroit grant in collaboration with the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Osborn Neighborhood Alliance. In 2017, he was honored as Most Valuable Millennial by Everything Business Corp.

His client list reads like a who's who of Detroit institutions. Rocket Companies commissioned him to create the "Detroit is Home" mural on the Broderick Tower. Owens Corning brought him to Dallas, Atlanta, Anaheim, and their headquarters in Toledo for live art performances. Neiman Marcus at Somerset Collection hosted a Smile Land pop-up boutique in 2022. In 2023, Shinola tapped Simpson to design artwork for a limited-edition collaboration tied to Detroit's Grand Prix weekend. In January 2026, he served as live painter at the Charity Preview Night of the Detroit Auto Show at Huntington Place.

Original Paintings

Alongside his public murals, Simpson maintains an active studio practice. His paintings — vibrant, textured canvases populated by his signature abstract faces, bold outlines, and joyful color palettes — are available directly through his website, priced from $200 to $3,000. They capture the same energy as his large-scale work but scaled to something you can live with every day.

Oils and Locs

16 × 16 · Acrylic & Oil Stick

$450

East Village

Original painting · Detroit roots

$3,000

Kindred Spirits 2

Original painting

$375

Up Close Purple

Original painting

$200

Untitled

Original painting

$275

I Got Your Back

Original painting · 2025

$900

Coney Star · Detroit culture mural

READ Mural · Charles Wright School, Detroit · 2023

One Million Smiles

At the heart of everything Simpson creates is a character called The Smile Man — and a universe called Smile Land. The Smile Man has appeared at schools and community events, embodying the ethos Simpson has built his career around. He has set himself an ambitious personal goal: to paint one million smiles. He is also co-founder and designer of The Smile Brand, LLC, launched in 2012 and still operating today.

His work has been featured in the Detroit Metro Times, Metro Parent, Blac Detroit Magazine, and on WXYZ Detroit. He has been profiled by Shinola's journal and by Murals in the Market. His mural map at artbyphillipsimpson.com lets anyone locate his work across Detroit and the surrounding region.

For a city that has weathered more than its share of hardship — and emerged, again and again, with its creative spirit intact — Phillip Simpson feels like a natural symbol. Not because he papers over difficulty with optimism, but because he transforms it. Detroit has always had artists who believed in it. Phillip Simpson is one of the ones it will remember.