![]() It's more important for your poster to be readable than clever. One thing you don't want to do is get too unusual with your layout, says Hess. You can number your sections and include simple flowchart marks to further guide your reader's gaze. So lay out your information in columns that follow this path. Designer and communication researcher Colin Wheildon, author of "Type & Layout" (Worsley Press, 2005), explains that most people from Western reading backgrounds will read your poster from top to bottom, then left to right. Graphics in the middle of your poster are fine, but don't overload the poster edges, Tosney adds.ĭesign for your readers' eyes. A poster that's image-heavy on either end throws off people's natural affinity for symmetry. ![]() A 1994 study in Nature found that humans have an aesthetic preference for symmetrical things, be they people or patterns (Vol. If you have a graphic element in the top left, try to include one in the bottom right, as well. Leaving space between poster elements will make it easier to read.Īim for symmetry. Don't jam every square inch of your poster with graphs and text, says Street. Finally, Hess says, keep in mind that 7 percent to 10 percent of men have red-green colorblindness, so don't put those colors adjacent to each other. Also, apply colors consistently, with section titles all the same hue. In general, dark colors against a white background show up better than light colors against a dark background, especially in dimmer convention halls. More than that will overload and confuse your readers. "Go for simplicity and stick to two or three colors that really stand out against your background," Hess says. Daniel Baughn, a clinical psychology and behavioral medicine grad student at Virginia Commonwealth University, recommends using poster design software, which automatically balances image sizes with the rest of the poster's materials.Ĭhoose colors wisely. Let the data speak for itself as much as possible, Hess adds. "There's real power in turning your information into simple, clean graphical representations to communicate data relationships."Īvoid 'chart junk.' Unnecessary grid lines, labels, keys and other extraneous information undermine your main message, Tosney says. Charts, graphs and pictures will make your poster pop, says George Hess, PhD, a professor at North Carolina State University who collaborated with Tosney to create an online poster-making guide. At a convention, your poster will probably be one fish in a large sea. "Simple messages are more memorable."Įmphasize graphics. "Providing endless details detracts from the point of your poster," Tosney says. Limit your methods section to a few sentences - if someone wants the nitty-gritty, they'll ask. "Look for a simple, effective message that invites people into conversation." In the body of the poster, use short, declarative sentences to explain what you found and why it matters. The title should let people know what your poster is about in one brief sentence, he says. The first thing people will look at is the poster's title, says Warren Street, PhD, a professor emeritus of psychology at Central Washington University who's judged poster sessions for years. "An effective poster helps you engage colleagues in conversation and gets your main points across to as many people as possible."įocus on findings. ![]() "A good poster is not just tacking a standard research paper on poster board," says Kathryn Tosney, PhD, a neurobiologist and chair of the biology department at the University of Miami who created a poster-making guide to help her own students. The trick is making your poster stand out among the hundreds of others. Poster sessions offer a chance for many eyes to see your hard work - and some of those visitors may open doors to interesting research collaboration, postdoc or career opportunities.
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