The group have supported various charities, raising millions for causes like cancer research and autism, and spreading awareness of global issues such as poverty and climate change.

Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson auditioned as solo candidates for the 2010 series of the British singing competition The X Factor.

[47] Up All Night was released internationally in March, and One Direction became the first UK group to have their debut album reach number one in the US, inducted into the Guinness World Records as a result.

[63] The lawsuit claimed that Syco and Sony Music "chose to ignore the plaintiff's rights and wilfully infringed them" after they realised in early 2011 that the two bands shared the same name.

[63] Syco Records subsequently counter-sued, suggesting the US group was trying to make money from One Direction's success and that the boy band was the first to use the name in US interstate commerce.

Savan Kotecha, Rami Yacoub, and Carl Falk, who composed One Direction's hits "What Makes You Beautiful" and "One Thing", spent six months in Stockholm developing songs for the album, and were able to shape melodies around their tones.

[84] The music video for the charity single was shot in Ghana,[85] where the group volunteered at a children's hospital,[86] Tokyo, New York City, and London,[87] including at 10 Downing Street, featuring a cameo from the then-British prime minister David Cameron.

[104][105] The day constituted of a 7 hour socially interactive YouTube live-stream featuring live band performances, celebrity guests including Simon Cowell, Khloe Kardashian, Kelly Rowland, Robbie Williams, Celine Dion, and Piers Morgan.

[167][168][171][175] Their second album, Take Me Home (2012), is characterised by rock-inherited pop, prominent electric guitar riffs, bright synthesisers, a homogeneous sound and message, and the pitch-correcting software Auto-Tune.

[78][79][176][72] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian interpreted its signature sound as a "peppy, synth-bolstered take on early-80s new-wave pop, heavy on clipped rhythms and chugging guitars", which, he said, is at least an improvement on the substitute contemporary R&B "that was once the grim lot of the boyband".

Billboard wrote of the album's first single, "Steal My Girl", that it was "no What Makes You Beautiful, but its Coldplay-like piano pop could be a good direction",[181] and that the band was "not entirely ready to let go of its bubble-gum days".

Rolling Stone described the record as "saturated with retro vibes", saying that its songs "split the difference between big, splashy Eighties pop rock and more elegant Seventies flavours – a very pesky whipper-snapper move that's not so far from what Haim's hit 'Days Are Gone' did last year".

"[188] Melody Lau of the National Post wrote, "It's easy to get lost in inherent appeal of their perfectly coiffed dos and almost-too-put-together preppy style but somewhere in the midst of all the love-struck squeals of teenage girls are guys who can actually sing and, to a certain extent, entertain.

"[190] Chris Richards, writing in The Washington Post, dissented from the approval: "As the five traded couplets, it was tough to imagine a future Justin Timberlake, Ricky Martin or Bobby Brown emerging from the pack.

[196] Social media marketing included a tie up with Shazam, whereby consumers that used the digital music app in conjunction with the ad both on TV and online were able to view exclusive content and link back to iTunes to buy One Direction's single, "Live While We're Young".

[202][203] Later that year, the band partnered with MUA Cosmetics to release "Little Things", a collection of makeup products including lipsticks, inspired by the members' favourite colours.

[212][213][214] The band appeared in a Honda Civic ad which shows the quartet testing out the car's stereo, style, and trunk space with a humorous tone and the tagline "It's all One Direction approved."

[217][218] In September 2012, Niall Horan organised an event to raise money for charities Irish Autism Action and Temporary Emergency Accommodation Mullingar, the latter based in his hometown.

[227] On 15 November 2014, One Direction joined the charity group Band Aid 30 along with other British and Irish pop acts, recording the latest version of the track "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

"For the most part, that just means the group presents themselves as typical, goofy and uncensored teenage boys – posting jokey YouTube videos, for instance, or boozing at awards shows.

"[238] Writing for The Observer, Kitty Empire opined, "One Direction fulfill a great many boy band prerequisites (looks, soppy lyrics, tune-grasp, fame-lust) but their lack of routines points to the subtle digressions afoot here".

[274] That same year, "1D World" stores were opened around the United States as the group worked on their second studio album to meet the high demand for the band and "to give fans the ultimate One Direction experience".

[269] Slate noted that One Direction portrayed more of a "joking" and "fun" manner in their songs, music videos, and individual personas when compared to boy bands of the past.

[278] Despite their differences in that regard, the group still used an approach pioneered by the Beatles in which each member was applied a persona; Horan as "the cute Irish one", Malik as "the quiet and mysterious one", Payne as "the sensible one", Styles as "the charming flirt" and Tomlinson as "the funny one".

[279] TMRW Magazine wrote in a 2020 story that the group "helped defy traits typically associated with toxic masculinity" and that "their friendship set them apart, made them more real".

[281][282][283] In 2024, Simon Cowell announced open casting calls for the "next One Direction", stating that he did not believe a boyband had reached the success of the group since the band's conception.

[292] In 2019, American teen drama Euphoria featured a character writing One Direction fan fictions online, and had an animated sex scene between Styles and Tomlinson.

[301]: 2  The Independent wrote that "the legacy of One Direction isn't anything to do with the 1D boys or Simon Cowell, but the extraordinary power of teenage girls" while calling them "sole engineers of the band's unbelievable success" and "alchemists".

[303]: 19–25 [301]: 3 [304] A 2022 article by Fast Company writes that "One Direction fangirls made the internet a better place" and that "we should thank Harry Styles-obsessed fandoms for shaping our social interactions online".

[2] Their rise in success has been greatly credited to social media, which allowed fans to not only spread the word about the group, but get live updates from concerts and interviews as well as about the band's whereabouts daily.