Scientific Poster Design

Seminar Three / Professor Allen

October 31, 2014

Gwendolyn Shaw, gwendolyn.shaw@macaulay.cuny.edu

ITF, Macaulay Honors College at Baruch College

(with slides borrowed from Kirsten Greene, Craig Willse and

Emily Sherwood)

Workshop Goals

• Understand project expectations

• Learn the basics of poster design

• Meet with and talk to your group to begin planning your posters

Possible Dimensions—Just FYI

• 36"x48"

• 30"x42"

• 26"x38"

• 27"x39"

• 17"x22"

• 24"x36"

• 18"x24"

• 34"x44"

• 28"x40"

• 22"x34"

• Other (NB—PPT produces up to 56”x56”

What is a poster, anyway??

• Visual means for communicating research to an academic or professional community.

• Summary of research that serves to create interest by highlighting the most important things.

Sample Poster

Requirements

• Each group must produce one poster

• Sign up for the conference (and present your great work!)

• More info: http://macaulay.cuny.edu/eportfolios/allen14/files/2014/08/Research-Project-Instructions.pdf

Elements of a Successful Poster

• Images should guide the overall layout, not the text.

• Images should be simple and easily read from afar

• Use Sans-Serif fonts for easy reading

• Avoid cluttering the poster (too many graphs or photos).

• Watch your color contrasts! Color should be easy on the eyes.

• Make sure all components are aligned properly.

• Make use of an underlying structure that guides the viewer.

Font Guidelines

• For the major sections of the poster:

Title: 85pt

Authors: 56pt

Sub-headings: 36pt

Body text: 24pt

Captions: 18pt

• By Distance:

To be legible 6 feet use 30 pt.

To be legible 10 feet use 48 pt.

To be legible 12 feet use 60 pt.

To be legible 14 feet use 72 pt.

More information: http://www.makesigns.com/tutorials/poster-design-layout.aspx

Remarks on Color

• Watch your color contrasts! Color should be easy on the eyes.• Color should:

• Highlight or emphasize

• Separate and define sections of your poster

• Associate related information (color-code)

• AVOID

• Colors that are too bright or bold—they compete with the information!

• Colors that overwhelm the viewer (e.g. red is a color that jumps forward at the viewer)

Red focuses attention, but attacks you in large doses!

Barnett Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimus, 1950, MoMA

Ways to choose a color scheme

• Using Photos? Let them dictate the color scheme of your poster

• Useful tools• Color scheme generator (uses a photograph as the

basis)

• http://www.pictaculous.com/

• http://www.cssdrive.com/imagepalette/

• Remember: Keep the Back in Background

Sizing

• Figures• No figures should be smaller than 5x7”

• All figures should have captions (and ideally numbers)

• Photographs

• 300 dpi (high resolution)

• Crop to highlight what is important the focal point

• Thin black outlines help legibility

• Use iNaturalist or other open-source, creative commons licensed resources

Infographics

• Free Infographic generator!• http://www.easel.ly/

General Organization

• Title Block

• Abstract / Introduction

• Methods

• Results

• Conclusions

• Sources

Title Block

• Most prominent feature (make it big to be legible from afar)

• Located at the top of your poster

• Centered or left justified

Basic Layout

• Landscape-oriented (hot-dog style)• Separate into at least 2 columns (do not have to be

equal width)

• Read left-to-right

• Portrait-oriented (hamburger-style)• Read top-to-bottom

• Divided into horizontal registers or bands for easy legibility

• No matter what—align your edges, use borders, and leave plenty of white space

Abstract / Introduction

• Introduction should briefly present the topic and your thesis.

• Thesis should be brief, direct, and succinct.

• You might address the following:• Why does the problem matter?

• Has anyone else looked at this problem?

• What are some of the related findings?

• Be sure to cite references.

Abstract / Introduction

Methods

• How are you answering your question, testing your hypothesis, or fulfilling your statement of purpose?

• What data did you use for your study?

• What are the methods you are using to analyze your data?

• What are the drawbacks?

Methods

Results

• What did you find?

• This should be purely descriptive.

• Pictures, images, and charts are particularly important for this part.

• You still want to describe your pictures.

• Aside from thesis, this is the most important part.

Results

Conclusions

• Wrap it up

• What did you discover?

• Do you accept or reject your hypothesis?

• How do you answer your question?

Conclusions

Sources

• You must cite the sources of any images, data, or sources you reference.

• Posters are like papers and plagiarism applies.

• Follow standard citation procedures.

Sources

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Compare: Left and Right

Do’s and Don’t’s

Things To Keep in Mind

• You have no more than 10 minutes of someone’s attention for a formal presentation. Even LESS when presenting informally

• The more pictures the better

• The less text the better

• Leave lots of white/blank space

• Have a border

• Does your poster make good organizational sense? (Is the layout easy to follow?)

• Look at examples on the web (I will post links to our website)

Resources

• Guidelines and step-by-step instructions• http://www.makesigns.com/tutorials/

• Infographics on Easel.ly• www.Easel.ly

• Image editing• www.Pixlr.com or you have Gimp on your Macs

• Tips on Design and Layout• http://colinpurrington.com/tips/academic/posterd

esign

Get to Work!

Meet with your group to discuss the elements of style and organization you might use for your poster. Use some time in class for planning, and ask questions if you have them!

Gwendolyn.shaw@macaulay.cuny.edu