Preparing a poster
Important References:
- Instructions for poster preparation for various meetings
- General guides for making posters
- Some example posters in Adobe Acrobat format (requires Adobe Acrobat plugin to view or print)
- Hybrid speciation with external barriers: Encelia (Asteraceae: Heliantheae), a case study
- Hybrid speciation in Encelia virginensis (Asteraceae): Evidence from multiple ITS chimeras
- Comparative morphology of disk floret trichomes of Encelia (Asteraceae)
- Morphological Variation in Mimulus section Diplacus (Scrophulariaceae)
- Comparative anatomy of the leaves and stems of Encelia (Asteraceae: Heliantheae)
- Posters from BioTrek (posters don’t have to look boring). All are Adobe Acrobat format, some are quite large.
- Ant-Plant Mutualism
- Capybara
- Deserts
- Fish in the Trees
- The Flooded Forest
- Chicken of the Trees
- Jaguar
- Parts of a Kelp
- Forests Under the Sea
- Kelp Interactions
- Matamata turtle
- Millipede
- Kelp Harvest
- Mycorrhizae
- Nutrient Cycles in the Kelp Forest
- Layers of Trees
- Sloths
- Wiregrass, acorns, and seaweed
- Poor Soils, Rich Forests
- Tiny Frog, Big Voice
- Stick Insects
- What is wet even if it is dry?
- Wetlands
Information
Posters are an alternative to slide presentations for communicating scientific studies at meetings. A poster consists of text and graphics, designed to be read at a distance, affixed to a large board or other surface. Posters are characteristically displayed together in a large room, in a “poster session”; the authors are generally expected to be present for a specified time during the session so that others viewing the posters can talk with them.
The main constraints on a poster are maximum size (usually specified by the organizers of a meeting, and never larger than the provided mounting boards) and legibility at a distance. In addition, the poster should be visually attractive (in the literal sense of attracting a viewer from across the room to look at it more closely), and it should convey its main idea (in the form of title, graphics, or both) very quickly.
Like slides, posters have undergone immense technical change in recent decades. Prior to the widespread availability of Macintosh and Windows computers, it was difficult for most biologists to make text in any size larger than the “Primary” or “Orator” typewriter styles. Posters relied strongly on either photographic or graphic arts techniques that were time-consuming and not easily available. Construction of posters was also difficult: pieces were assembled with rubber cement or dry-mount tissue (a heat-sensitive sheet intended to attach photographs to card backing). The physical manufacture of a poster might take a month or more of consistent work.
By the late 1980s, computer-generated text and graphs had become standard, and posters were assembled with spray adhesive, but photographs and materials in colors other than black and white were still handled by the older methods. Today, with the advent of inexpensive color printers and wide availability of programs for graphic arts, posters with photographs and color accents can be fully assembled digitally, and printed out in final form. Specialized graphic arts techniques have also advanced. The current common style in the United States is a single sheet of paper larger than a meter square, which can be laminated in plastic.
The organization of information in a poster will not necessarily match the organization of a publication or a slide presentation. Like a publication (and unlike a slide presentation), a poster is “random access”: A viewer can skip around among the parts, rather than reading in sequence. But like a slide presentation, a poster relies heavily on the visual.
From the standpoint of display, a poster is best created as a single unit, either as a single large hardcopy from a wide-bed printer or with all the pieces attached to a foam-core or matte board backing. This allows precise placement of visual elements and control of the background color, all in the convenience of your own lab. But transporting such a poster can be difficult, especially to a distant meeting. An alternate design involves modular pieces of a size that fits a briefcase or portfolio. These can be assembled on-site, and if they are designed to butt edges, the effect can be similar to a one-piece poster. The simplest approach is to print the poster on 8.5" × 11" photo-quality ink-jet paper, transport it in a flat envelope, and attach it to the board with push-pins. If the color or appearance of the board is an issue, a large piece of fabric can be pinned up first, and the individual sheets pinned to it.
Legibility of a poster is always an issue. Most parts of a poster should be readable from two meters away. A text font of 24 points is a good initial choice, with larger sizes for headings and smaller for information that only the most interested viewers will take the time to read. Photos, graphs, and diagrams should be bold and not busy, so that the main points can be easily grasped. Color should be used for emphasis, for separating series in graphs, and for tying together thematic elements.
Because things look different on a computer screen, it’s often useful to print out a low-resolution draft of a poster, especially if others can critique it. For the final poster, ordinary paper will usually suffice for text and graphs (and for a wide-bed printer, there may only be one paper choice), but you should use the more expensive “photo-quality” paper for photographs.
Assignment
Create a poster in PowerPoint no smaller than 42" × 36" and no larger than 48" × 42". There should be enough stuff on it to make an attractive layout, but it must include:
- A title and author/institution
- At least one non-bulleted text box
- At least one bulleted text box
- At least one graphic (graph, photo, clip-art, etc.)
Turn in the .ppt file.