Posters

Focus on main points

Don’t use a smaller font to cram more stuff onto the poster.

Cull the most essential information from everything you have. That is what goes onto the poster. If it’s still too much, cut some more.

Posters must be coherent

A poster is coherent when– It’s easy for your audience to move from one

topic discussed on your poster to another – It’s easy to see the relationships between topics

Poster coherence depends on visual connections, not textual connections

Posters are a visual medium

Posters almost always need visuals.– Make them the an effective size relative to their

communication ability Don’t minimize the visuals to fit more text

onto the poster

Visuals must communicate

Clipart for the sake of an image is bad Images for the sake of an image is bad

Make the poster readable

Never go below 24 points.– Yes, this will look huge on your monitor

It must be readable from 10 feet away. Easily readable….not a squint and work at it

11 seconds

11 seconds is how long you have to grab a person attention.

If the poster fails inside that 11 seconds, they don’t read it.

Use a consistent design

Don’t create a ransom note effect of fonts and colors

Normal page layout rules apply Any color must have meaning. Don’t

change colors for various areas without a good communication reason….adding visual interest isn’t one.

Use normal fonts

Don’t get fancy with font choice Use regular mixed case

– Not all caps– Not centered text

Simplify the image

People will look at a printed image longer than a poster image

Simplify the figure as much as possible. But not so much that the message is lost.

Clean margins

The margins give you a border. Posters are not gothic artwork, don’t over do the border

Use a clean margin without figures or text extending into them

Make the important stuff visible

The most important message on a poster should be placed in the top center.

The second most important message is top left.

Use columns

Posters are too wide for a single column.– Too much head movement is required.

Columns allow readers to read the entire poster as they precede from left to right.

Avoid web graphics

Web graphics are low resolution (96 dpi) and will not blow up to poster size well.

The jagged edges and pixelated appearance are both unprofessional

End