National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network

NNIN REU Program
Poster Advice
from Dr. Lynn Rathbun
 

NNIN REU folks

I know you are all in the midst of preparing for the convocation and preparing at least a draft of your paper.

Melanie asked me to share a bit about making posters. This is another good skill you need to learn. Some of you may have experience, but there is always more to learn.

Basically, an effective poster has to have both good content and good graphic presentation. Poor graphics can obscure the good content. Good graphics can't overcome bad content, and good content cannot, by itself, make up for bad design.

While nobody expects you to be a graphic artist, there are certain basic things you need to know that will help a lot. Including:

• Use visual clues for organization, i.e. text boxes, titles, etc. Good orderliness is important.
   
• Stick to a grid -- at least a column grid.
   
• ALL CAPITALS IS A VERY BAD IDEA. That is why they invented bold.
   
• White space (blank space) is your friend. Do not fill every square inch with text or pictures. It is the sign of an amateur. White space can be an organizing tool just as well as real structure.
   
• Text over a patterned background is very difficult to read. Text over a dark background may be difficult to read, takes a lot of ink, dries slowly, and is not a good idea either. There is nothing wrong with a white background.

• Stick to two fonts, one sans-serif font, typically for titles and sections headings, and one Serif font, typically for text blocks.
   
• And stick to a basic color scheme. There are web sites that will help you pick a harmonious color scheme. A bunch of bright red and blue text or titles however just looks garish. Gratuitous changes in size or font are also very distracting. And for heavens sake, no funky fonts!
   
• And just because you can center justify text does not make it a good idea. It is difficult to read.
  Titles OK, but not block text.
• Similarly fully justified text (left and right margins) is bad.

• Bad design can make the scientific context difficult to find or grasp. Ultimately, however, a poster is about science. Scientifically, you need the right amount of information....not too much, not too little. A poster has more information than just the PowerPoint bullets from an equivalent talk, but less information than a full paper. At a technical conference, you might want a lot of detail, it varies, but for the REU convocation, you want it to be fairly light....informative about the general area and results but skip the details. Most people err on the side of too much information on a poster. Keep the type big, and the sentences and paragraphs short. And use clearly labeled sections to guide the viewer.

I found a quote somewhere on the web a while back......

One person recently commented to me, "Often times, I look at a poster for five minutes and am unsure of the important points, but when I hear just a few minutes from the scientist I find the work so much easier to understand."

If this is the case for your poster, your poster is a failure. You have to guide a reader and basically tell them what you would tell them if you were standing there conversing with them (keep in mind, you may not always be at your poster). Nobody should walk away from your poster unsure about what you have done or accomplished. Similarly, if it takes them more than 30 seconds to get the main point, it isn't going to happen. Actually, in most cases a visitor will decide within 10 seconds whether to stop and read or just move on. So you have two problems, 1) getting them to stop and read/puruse and 2) enganing them to stay longer than 30 seconds.  Good design can overcome these problems whereas bad design exacerbates them. Spell it out for them. Notice I did not say  SPELL IT OUT FOR THEM.

There are a lot of web sites that talk about making posters and presentations. While they may vary on details they generally agree that graphics are important and less test is better.

• http://www.cns.cornell.edu/documents/ScientificPosters.pdf
• http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurrin1/posteradvice.htm
• A good site with lots of information and templates
  • http://www.makesigns.com/SciPosters_Home.aspx
  • http://www.makesigns.com/tutorials/poster-design-layout.aspx
  • http://www.makesigns.com/SciPosters_Templates.aspx
• http://downloads.graphicsland.com/how-to-make-a-scientific-poster.pdf
• http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/documents/QuickReferenceV3.pdf
• http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31071/title/Poster-Perfect/
• http://www.ga.lsu.edu/Effective%20Poster%20Design%20for%20Academic%20Conferences.pdf
• http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ugar/undergrad/posterinstructions.html
• http://www.postersession.com/poster-templates.php
• http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/posterpres.html

Scientific posters sessions can be a zoo, and can seem to be unproductive. A lot of people will walk past and only a few will stop. Don't be discouraged.  Try to engage them and be satisfied with a few constructive conversations.

Good luck,
Lynn

Dr. Lynn Rathbun
[email}
(607) 254-4872