My slides on Academic Poster design

2. Joanne Payton
IKWRO, HBVAnet & Cardiff University
joannepayton.me.uk
SIT702:
POSTER
DESIGN
WORKSHOP

3. Why are we doing this?
• Conference posters are a
great way for early-stage
researchers to introduce
their work, develop
presentation skills and get
feedback
• They force you to refine your
topic to its essence
• Good for your CV and career
development
• You may wish to produce
posters throughout your
career as a researcher
TASK
• Design a conference poster
about your research.
• Submit an A4 size version
as a PDF via Learning
Central
– Deadline 07/05/2014 - 12
noon
• This is an assessment task
and is worth 20% of your
grade along with the
presentation.

4. Design
How can you make your poster stand out in this
chaotic environment?

5. Design aims
• Attractive
• Well-organized
• Self-explanatory
• Informative
• Appropriate text and imagery
• Considers the reader

6. Basic design principles
Contrast
Proximity
Alignment
Repetition
(these two are
deliberately
bad
examples)

7. Managing content
A poster is less about presenting the
totality of your research than tempting
your reader to find out more about it
• Cut, cut, cut:
– Try and get body text down to
less than 1,000 words. You
can go as low as a few
hundred.
– Pick ONE message you want
the reader to take away
• Create a hierarchy of information
• Don’t use boring headings
• Give your copy room to breathe:
no walls of text!
• Bullets, diagrams, columns

8. Laying out
• Consider scamping it with a pencil and paper
before you get in front of a computer.
Squared paper can help you keep it tidy.
• Think about how you want to direct the
reader’s gaze
• Look at other posters, but also check out
magazine and newspaper spreads and
infographics for inspiration
• Symmetrical design looks more staid/reliable;
asymmetric design looks more edgy.
– An even number of columns will look
more conservative than an odd number
• Beware of busy backgrounds
• Landscape/portrait?
– If it’s portrait, be careful not to stand in
front of it!
• Check out templates (see resources)
Magazines and
newspaper
layouts can be
useful models:
professional
designers in these
media have
developed
strategies for
dealing with a
high level of text
and images while
keeping it all
attractive and
readable

9. Mechanicals
• Design to size using custom
settings in your software – don’t
start small and scale up
– Powerpoint: Design > Page Setup
– Publisher: New > More Blank Page
Sizes > Custom
• Pictures/artwork at 300 dpi - or
as close as you can get it.
– Images from GIS etc will be at 72
dpi: way too small! Plus you will
have to consider copyright.
• Software
– Graphic design software
Powerpoint/Publisher
• Save down as a PDF for
printing
• If you have a lot of images pay
for gloss/coated/photograph
paper

10. Typography
Nobody has ever complained that a poster is too
easy to read.
• FUNKY FONTS are hard to read
• Sans serifs are great for headings and body text, and for
reversed text (i.e. light on a dark background). They look
modern and clearn.
• Serifs may be better at small sizes and for longer text, and if
you want to look classy/conservative. Very few books set long
text in sans serif.
• CAPITAL LETTERS are harder to read.
• Underlining cuts off descenders so italics/bold is a better way
to emphasise individual words.
• If your typeface has a lot of versions (like in the image) use
these for emphasis instead of the toolbar Bold and Italicise.
• Body text should be >20pts; headings >30pts.
• The title can be as big as 100 pts.
• The ideal line length is 50-75 characters. Think about this
when setting your columns.

11. Colour schemes
Colour used to
organise the
various
sections: looks
cleaner than
boxes!
Colour scheme
pulled out from
key photograph
to unify poster
Tips:
• Overly bright colours can be
tiring on the eyes
• Many people are red/green
colour-blind
• Light text on a dark
background is almost always
a bad idea
• Lots of internet tools will help
you find appealing colour
schemes.
• Don’t go mad with colour: try
to keep it to a couple of basic
colours and a few accents.
• You could use Cardiff
University colours.
• Powerpoint etc. don’t display
colours accurately. It might
be worth printing out a test
sample to make sure your
dusky rose isn’t a screaming
fuchsia, or vice versa.

12. Graphic elements and artwork
A repeating graphic motif
organises some rather
unexciting, small photographs
A few strong images may be better than a ‘stamp
collection’ of many.
A large image
attracts
attention from
across the
room, and can
give an idea of
the subject
DON’T STRETCH IMAGES. If they aren’t big enough, they aren’t big
enough.

13. Graphic elements and artwork 2
Graphic elements and artwork 2 • Copyright considerations:
– Find free or creative commons
images or use your own hi-res
photographs (see resources).
– Some stock photography can be
cheap enough to be worth
considering.
– You could politely email a
professional photographer and ask
for permission to use her/his work.
• Captions
– People are more likely to read
captions than body text. So make
them interesting!
• Think laterally
– If your project isn’t very visual, you
may be able to find an image that
sums up a concept or idea.

14. Graphic elements and artwork 3
Graphic elements and artwork 2 University & funder logos
Download them from these links:
http://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/brandtoolkit/brand/logo/logo-file-
download/
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/about-esrc/visual-identity/
• The ones with the file extension .eps are
correct for high-quality print. For the
ESRC, use the one designated CMYK.
• Most institutions will have fairly strict
guidelines about using their logo. These
will be about positioning (i.e. how close it
can be to other elements) minimum size
and so on. You should check these.
http://www.qrstuff.com/
QR code
so that people can get a
link to your blog or
university profile page
etc…or even
supplementary media
content, such as a
Vimeo/Soundcloud file
relevant to your research

15. Pulling it all together
Being a little bit boring is a far lesser crime than being a complete mess.
Questions to ask yourself:
• Is your poster clear, concise and readable?
• How does it look from 10 feet away? (Try zooming
out and then walking away from your monitor)
• What impression will your reader get if they look at it
for just TWO seconds?
• Does the reader know where to start reading?
• Does the reader know how to contact you?
• Are all logos from institutions and funders present?

16. Presenting ideas
• It’s a good idea to take some velcro
tabs in case of disaster.
• Get a cardboard tube to carry it
• If you put a selfie on the poster,
people can find you for questions in
a crowd
• Take some business cards and a
few printouts of your articles
• Take a notepad/sign up sheet to get
people’s details in case you run out
or you need to get back to them –
with a clip or envelope to keep hold
of business cards
• If you have an ipad or similar and a
stand, you could use it to display
video/slideshows
• If the conference has a twitter
hashtag, use it to tell attendees
about your presentation.
• You could dress in the same
colour-scheme as your
poster.
• You should definitely wear
comfortable shoes.

17. Resources
• colinpurrington.com/tips/academic/posterdesign
– Includes very useful Powerpoint Templates
which can get you off to a quick start
• betterposters.blogspot.co.uk
– Another blog about conference posters
• studentposters.co.uk
– More templates
• search.creativecommons.org,
commons.wikimedia.org, istockphoto.com, &
sxc.hu
– Find free & cheap images to illustrate your
presentations. Remember you need very
large images.
• publicdomainreview.org, images.nga.gov,
vintageprintable.com & freevintageposters.com
– Out of copyright artwork -- all kinds of retro
images from propaganda posters to classical
art to botanical sketches.
• informationisbeautiful.net &
flickr.com/groups/great_diagrams_in_anthropologic
al_theory
– Inspiration for diagrams
• magspreads.net
– Graphic design site focussing on magazine
layout
• pictaculous.com
– Generate a colour scheme from an image
• kuler.adobe.com
– Design your own scheme using a colour
wheel
– Check out other people’s colour schemes
• flickr.com/groups/pimpmyposter
– Submit your poster for constructive criticism,
and check out other people’s work
• postergenius.com
– Specific software for academic posters.
Simple to do, but designs are limited and it
costs $69!
• presentationzen.com/chapter6_spread.pdf
– Very short chapter on graphic design
• youtube.com/watch?v=GJwcVWszLC4
– Tutorial on poster design in general (19
minutes)
• youtube.com/watch?v=syo7_IfcFgU
– …in Publisher (13 minutes)
• youtube.com/watch?v=MqgjgwIXadA
– …in Powerpoint (10 minutes) – would be
good to use along with a template