What makes a good poster?

General

Word count of about 300 to 800 words

Important information should be readable from about 10 feet away
Bullet points for methods and conclusions.
It is helpful to remember the rule of 10s: the average person scans
your poster for 10 seconds from 10 feet away. When someone stops,
you should be able to introduce your poster in 10 seconds and they
should be able to assimilate all of the information and discuss it with
you in 10 minutes.
Do not typeset the title in all capital letters (such text is difficult to
read).
To prevent cropping when printing, be sure you have a 1 inch margin
around the edges of the poster.
Your poster should read from top left to bottom right, like you are
reading a page.

Text

Font size
o Title: 80 pt or 72-120 (no smaller than 55 pt)
o Authors: 54 pt
o Subheading: 36pt
o Body text: 24pt or 24 - 48
o Captions: 18 pt
Font Type:
o Titles and Headings Sans-serif (Arial, Verdana, Helvetica. )
o other text Serif Fonts (times, Garamond)
If your text is in a different file (e.g. in a Word document) be sure that it
pastes into a text box in PowerPoint so it can be more easily edited. To
do this, use the Paste Special command and choose Unformatted
Text so that the text will become a PowerPoint text box. If you just copy
and paste, your text will be an imported word processing object, which
will not be as easy to edit in PowerPoint.

Colors

Use black text on a white background.

Red can be used to draw attention
A void blue and yellow which are hard to read.
 Its important to maintain a good contrast between the background
color and the text color. Consider using a light color background and
dark text.

A gradient color fill in the background, especially black, will print

poorly. It will have very thin visible lines that you will not see on your
computer monitor.

The colors that you see on your computer monitor will not reproduce
exactly the same on a printed poster, as monitor color settings vary.
You can expect that there will be a color shift of 2 or 3 shades.

Graphics

Images copied from the web are low resolution (72 dpi) images and are
not proper quality for inclusion in your poster.
Limit image resolution to 150 dpi to ensure their ability to print. (At
least 300dpi=120dpcm)
All graphics should be pictures (e.g. .tif, .gif for transparency, .jpg for
non-transparent images) inserted directly into PowerPoint (NOT linked
from another program). The preferred image format for all inserted
images is JPEG if you do not need a transparent background.
If you have graphs or charts from Excel to include in your poster,
simply copy in Excel and paste into PowerPoint.
Do not enlarge images after they have been inserted into PowerPoint.
To adjust an image and retain proportion, hold down the Shift key on
your keyboard and click and drag with your mouse on one of the
corners in order to scale it.
No figure smaller than 5 X 7.

Sections:

Title and author

Abstract (175- s50 word)
Introduction ( 200 word)
Methods (200 words and use flowcharts)
Results (200 words)
Discussion and conclusions (200 words and include future work and
related work)
References (5-10 lines- add major ones only)
 Acknowledgments (40 words)

---- End of Summary ---

Evaluation
---- End of Evaluation ---
What software can I use to make a poster?

PowerPoint: A popular, easy-to-use option. It is part of Microsoft Office package and is available on
the library computers in rooms LC337 and LC336. (Advice for creating a poster with PowerPoint).

Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign: Feature-rich professional software that is good for
posters including lots of high-resolution images, but they are more complex and expensive.

Open Source Alternatives: OpenOffice in the free alternative to MS Office (Impress is its
PowerPoint alternative). Inkscape and Gimp are alternatives to Adobe products. For charts and
diagrams try Gliffy or Lovely Charts. A complete list of free graphics software.
First, the title of an effective poster should quickly orient the audience. Here are
some guidelines for poster titles:
1. Make the title the most prominent block of text on the poster (either center or left
justify at the top).
2. Do not typeset the title in all capital letters (such text is difficult to read).
3. Use small words such as of, from, with, to, the, a, an, and and to separate details in
the title.
While phrase titles are most common, some scientists and engineers effectively use
sentence titles for posters that present one main result. In such titles, state the result in
the title and capitalize the words as you would in a sentence. Because the sentence
title is a stand-alone, as opposed to being part of a paragraph, the period is generally
dropped.

Second, the poster should quickly orient the audience to the subject and
purpose. One good test is whether the audience recognizes the subject and purpose
within 20 seconds of seeing the poster. Usually, a poster accomplishes this goal with a
well-crafted title and with supporting images. Also, make sure that the type is large
enough to be read and that enough contrast exist between the color of the type and
poster's background. Typography recommendations can be found in the
followingPowerPoint poster template.

Third, the specific sections such as the results should be easy to locate on the
poster. Once readers recognize what the work is, they decide how much energy to
invest into the poster. For instance, many will read only the motivation for the work,
the objectives (or goals) of the work, and then the final results. Others, who have a
deep interest in the topic, will try to read the poster from beginning to end. Given
these different approaches to reading posters, another characteristic of an effective
poster is that specific sections are easy to locate.

Fourth, you should design the individual sections of a poster so that they can be
quickly read.Given the distractions that occur while reading posters in a symposium
such as in Figure 1, the poster should not contain large blocks of text. Neither should
the poster contain long sentences. If possible, the sections should rely on images:
photographs, drawings, and graphs.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3114208/table/T1/
 Organize Your
Information

Divide your information into main sections,for example:

Title -concise name of poster,contributors, organization

Introduction -statement giving quick overview of poster
Problem -statement of the problem
Method -brief description of the processes and procedures
Results -outcomes,findings,data
Conclusion -summary,discussion of significance of results,a few easily
remembered key conclusions

Take each of these sections and summarize its contents into 3

categories:

Heading -title the audience will see first

Statement -one sentence relating to the heading, the audience will read
this definition and should have and understanding of this particular
section
Support Material -if the definition has sparked their interest,they will
move on to this section which should include documentation and
illustrations
http://undergraduateresearch.as.ua.edu/presenting-your-work/making-posters/

ADVICE FOR MAKING POSTERS WITH POWER POINT

Slide Setup:

Your poster will be created on ONE slide in PowerPoint.

The page size of that slide must be your desired print size. You must do this step before
you create your poster. Your print quality will be substandard if you design your poster
and then change the size.

To prevent cropping when printing, be sure you have a 1 inch margin around the edges
of the poster.

To Set the Slide Dimensions:

For PowerPoint 2007 and PowerPoint 2010 for Windows:

Select the Design tab, then Page Setup. Select Custom from the Slides sized for
dropdown, enter desired size in inches.

For PowerPoint 2008 for Mac:

Select File, then Page Setup. Select Custom from the Slides sized for dropdown, enter
desired size in inches.

For PowerPoint 2011 for Mac:

Select the Themes tab, then Page Setup. Select Custom from the Slides sized for
dropdown, enter desired size in inches.

Poster Template:

There is a template available to you on the program website. Go

to http://osp.ua.edu/URCAnewFAQ.html, click on the What kind of poster do I use?
link, and download the template.

Slide Design Tips:

 Your poster should read from top left to bottom right, like you are reading a page.

Its important to maintain a good contrast between the background color and the text
color. Consider using a light color background and dark text.

A gradient color fill in the background, especially black, will print poorly. It will have very
thin visible lines that you will not see on your computer monitor.

The colors that you see on your computer monitor will not reproduce exactly the same
on a printed poster, as monitor color settings vary. You can expect that there will be a
color shift of 2 or 3 shades.

Graphics:

Images copied from the web are low resolution (72 dpi) images and are not proper
quality for inclusion in your poster.

Limit image resolution to 150 dpi to ensure their ability to print.

All graphics should be pictures (e.g. .tif, .gif for transparency, .jpg for non-transparent
images) inserted directly into PowerPoint (NOT linked from another program). The
preferred image format for all inserted images is JPEG if you do not need a transparent
background.

If you have graphs or charts from Excel to include in your poster, simply copy in Excel
and paste into PowerPoint.

Do not enlarge images after they have been inserted into PowerPoint.

To adjust an image and retain proportion, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and
click and drag with your mouse on one of the corners in order to scale it.

Text:

It is best to use a font that is cross-platform to ensure that your poster looks as you have
designed it. The fonts suggested here are all cross-platform and should be found on
 most systems. If you use a downloaded font that is specific to one environment (i.e. only
Mac or only Windows), you must embed that font in your PDF.

The title should be approximately the entire width of the poster with the main text broken
into multiple columns, usually three or four depending on the size of the poster. You may
also want to use section headings within the columns at the start of each section. (The
available template is designed in this fashion.)

Sans-serif fonts are the best for posters, particularly for the title, subtitle, and headers.

The most common fonts are Times New Roman and Arial. Other fonts include Arial
Black, Franklin Gothic Heavy, Tahoma, Trebuchet, Verdana, Garamond, Book Antiqua,
or Bookman Old Style, just to name a few. This is not an exhaustive list, just a few
examples.

You will have to adjust the font size depending on the amount of text in your poster and
the style of font you choose. For readability, you should not use a font size any smaller
than 18 points.

For consistency, it would be best to make all the headers the same size and use the
same font size throughout the poster for all body text.

If your text is in a different file (e.g. in a Word document) be sure that it pastes into a text
box in PowerPoint so it can be more easily edited. To do this, use the Paste
Special command and chooseUnformatted Text so that the text will become a
PowerPoint text box. If you just copy and paste, your text will be an imported word
processing object, which will not be as easy to edit in PowerPoint.