Designing a Scientific Poster

Maggie Dickinson Macaulay Instructional Technology Fellow

Queens College

(With slides borrowed from fellow ITF’s Russell Hogg and Craig Willse)

Today’s Goals:

1. Understand project expectations

2. Learn the basics of poster design

3. Determine elements of successful poster design

What’s a Scientific Poster, Anyway?

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

It is a summary of research that serves to create interest by highlighting most important findings.

Requirements

Each group must produce one poster.

Posters can be made with Keynote, PowerPoint or Illustrator.

Poster dimensions must be 48” x 36” (or vice versa).

Due Dates

Poster presentations at Macaulay December 10th and 15th

What makes a poster succeed?

Communicating your

ideas effectively.

The Pavlov Principle

Design Matters:

Images should guide the overall layout, not the text.

Avoid cluttering the poster (graphs, photos, etc.).

Watch your color contrasts.

Make sure all components are aligned properly.

Use some kind of underlying structure!

What makes a poster FAIL?

Text : Less is More Teeth are ideal for

studying life history because they grow incrementally, are not remodeled during an individual’s lifetime, and are not highly subject to environmental stresses.

Teeth & Life History Incremental growth Not remodeled Resistant to environmental

stress

Break text up with bullets or numbers. (Hint: This slide)

Indenting shows subordination- Like this, see?

Avoid lengthy paragraphs that give far too much detail, like talking about why you did what you did and

whether you dislike positivism because there is such a thing as reality out there and it operates in a certain way and we should be able to access that in some shape, form, or fashion and besides it’s all from some stuffy old dead guy thinking too hard, anyway.

How to Use Text:

Make sure your font colors stand out against the background.

Use fonts people can read! - Titles & headings should be 40 to 70 pt. - Body text should never be less than 14 pt.

Be consistent with colors and use them to guide the reader. - E.g., you could use one color for headings,

another for body text.

How to Use Text:

Templates for Poster Layout

Title & Authors

Left to Right, Top to Bottom Flow

Left to Right Flow in Rows

Title & Authors

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Centered Image & Peripheral Explanations

Title & Authors

Centered Explanation, Peripheral Images

Title & Authors

Sample Posters

Resources for Poster Design• Apple tutorial for making a scientific poster:

http://www.apple.com/science/productivitylab/#researchposter

• “Advice on designing scientific posters” (Swarthmore College) http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm“Do’s and Don’ts of Poster Presentation”

• “Do’s and Don’ts of Poster Presentation” (The American Society for Cell Biology) http://www.ascb.org/index.cfm?navid=112&id=1607&tcode=nws3

• “Creating Effective Poster Presentations” (North Carolina State University) http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/NewSite/