Smile design is the process the dentist goes through to plan and visualize a patient’s desired smile. Sometimes it’s simply correcting some of the teeth imperfections, that you might feel self- conscious about. A smile design is a dental procedure which artistically creates straighter, whiter and beautiful natural looking smiles. Smile designs can do wonders to fully restore your dental health and appearance regardless of the original state of your existing teeth. When it comes to re-creating a patient’s smile, it is not as simple as placing veneers or crowns on teeth that are whiter and brighter than the patient’s existing dentition.

Patients Expectations
One of the most important parts before any treatment is begun is that we discuss and discover the patient’s chief complaint and concerns and whether we can achieve the patient’s desired final result. After a thorough review of the patient’s medical and dental history, a comprehensive dental examination is carried out which includes proper radiographs, evaluation of the muscles and temporomandibular joint (TMJ)  etc. When it comes to restorative dentistry that involves significant dental treatment, including the patients smile, it is essential to have proper documentation to achieve proper diagnosis. This will include proper photos that are taken.

Facial Aesthetics
A basic overall assessment of the smile start from an outside-in approach and thus, there has to be some evaluation of the patient’s overall facial features, including facial proportions and evaluation of the facial esthetics in the vertical and horizontal planes. Assessment of the patient’s facial thirds and whether there are any disproportions present between the superior, middle and lower thirds. It is important to look for asymmetries in the facial features starting from the facial midline and how it intersects with the dental midline. It is important to assess asymmetries from the right and left hemifacial portions as well assessment of the patient’s interpupillary line and occlusal planes as well as the relation to the horizon.

Upper Lip Length, Lip Position, Mobility and Symmetry
The lips play an important role as they create the boundaries of the smile and play an important role in the complete smile design. Overall lip mobility is simply the movement of the lips at rest to the farthest position that occurs when the patient smiles spontaneously and is directly related to the upper lip length. In order to do so, assessment of the upper lip length and amount of tooth that is displayed at rest must be first assessed and then reassessment at the farthest position. 

Tooth Display
The amount of tooth that is displayed at rest is greater in females than males by an average of 1.5mm.

Incisal Edge Position in Relation to Surrounding Tissues and Horizontal Planes
The incisal edge position must also be evaluated in relation to the surrounding tissues as well

Midline
The position of the teeth, and the dental midline in regard to the facial midline and surrounding tissue is another area that has to be assessed during the smile evaluation. It is important to evaluate the relationship of the dental midline to the facial midline in addition to the overall angulation of the midline.