I tried to hang up the poster in a few different places to test out where most people would take a smile:

- The toilet at work… are people more likely to take a smile in a private place?

- The entrance of the cafe at work… are people more likely to take a smile in place that is designed for social interaction?

- At a light pole… are people more likely to take a smile in a place that is normally used for these “Lost’n’Found” posters?

- At a public stop sign… are people more likely to take a smile if it is hard to reach but very visible (you have to make a serious jumping effort to get it down)

- At a light pole, where I had already ripped off a smile… are people more likely to take a smile if somebody else has done it?

The result of my quasi experiment was as follows:

It took only 5 hours before all the smiles in our cafe was gone.

The second most takers has been the toilet.

Of the posters in the street the “Out of reach” has had more takers than the “In reach”

… and I do believe there are more takers if a smile is already ripped off. 

MORE TESTING IS NEEDED, and I am curious to hear your stories!

For the past 10 years I have been photographing street art, but strangely enough, never had the urge to participate myself - before now. Armed with a sharpie, scissor and sticky tape I spent my morning making Friday in Palo Alto a little friendlier. 

I realized that it takes bucket of creative confidence to hang up your work in public, without feeling like you are intruding public space, or even worse polluting or vandalizing it. 

I am curious to see if there are any takers of the smiles. I will have to revisit the same places in a few days, to see what has happened to the posters. 

Hi everyone!

I finally implemented this little gem of a concept at my school today, Hyper Island, which has over 150 people in our building at the moment.. So I thought it would be a pretty great place to experiment. Seeing as Hyper Island is an advertising focused school, and this is not particularly the area I wan’t to work after my education, this might look a bit strange at first over here, as it’s not an advert, or poster for an event. I thought it would be different for that reason too! 

There are usually loads of random post-it notes and funny comments lying around our studios, so I thought this would be a softer ‘notice’ lying around. I placed the ‘Take a Smile’ paper on the mirror just as you exit the toiler corridor, and next to the kitchen, so I was sure it was seen. It’s been up for a couple hours and 3 smiles have been taken, so let’s see what happens until the end of the day! 

Great idea & concept, hope to see it picked up by more people soon.

Take care, Ana Cecilia

- Profile on OpenIDEO ; - @anaceciliaboman