academic poster design
TRANSCRIPT
Academic Poster Design
Dr Jennifer Ferreira
Outline
Session designed to provide an introduction to creating academic posters.
1) Poster design
• What makes a good academic poster?
• Deciding on content
• Referencing
• Design options and style issues
2) Infographics
• What are infographics?
• Why use infographics?
• Tools and online platforms
• Creating your own infographics
Academic posters
Session designed to provide an introduction to
creating academic posters.
‘Posters are a chance to show off your work and to
network with colleagues, but only if the design is easy
on the eye.’
Powell, K (2012) Nature 483: 113-115.
What is the purpose
of academic posters?
What makes a good academic poster?
You have a selection of academic posters in your pack.
Identify:
• 5 good features of some of these posters;
• 5 things which could be improved in these posters
What makes an effective poster?
What makes a good academic poster?
Should be
readable 2
metres away Title should be
short and draw
interest
Limit the
word count
Text is
clear and
to the point Use of bullets,
numbering and
headlines make
it easy to read Effective use
of graphics,
colour and
fonts
Consistent
and clean
layout
Examples of best practice?
http://colinpurrington.com/2012/example-of-bad-scientific-poster/
The content: audience
You need to get the academic content right.
Who will your audience be?
• Specialist
• Related
• General
Content: Amount of Text
Content: Format
Title: the biggest text
Heading
This is an example sentence. Your opening text would go
here.
Heading
This is another example sentence.
Sub heading
This is the final example sentence.
Content: Format
. Cafes in the circular economy
There are a range of examples where cafés are becoming more than
simply spaces of consumption. Repair cafés represent one example:
http://repaircafe.org/.
The goal of the repaid café is to reduce waste, maintain and pass on
knowledge about repairing and strengthening communities.
The first Dutch repair café was opened in 2009 and there are now
locations all over the world including Germany, the US, Latvia, Brazil, Italy,
Canada. They represent places where you can bring your broken items
(electronics, clothing, tools) and have them repaired by volunteers – and
also have coffee.
Existing Research
Existing research on cafes is sporadic, but I have made an attempt to start
collecting relevant literature (key articles are listed at the end of this
document).
An ESRC project, “Cappuccino Community” conducted by Eric Laurier and
Chris Philo (Laurier and Philo, 2005) ran from 2003-2005 produced a
number of outputs around the use of cafes spaces – it was largely a study
of human behaviour in café spaces, and they used a range of methods to
explore how these spaces were used, and the different roles people play in
cafés.
Cafes in the circular economy
There are a range of examples where cafés are becoming more than
simply spaces of consumption. Repair cafés represent one example:
http://repaircafe.org/.
The goal of the repaid café is to reduce waste, maintain and pass on
knowledge about repairing and strengthening communities.
The first Dutch repair café was opened in 2009 and there are now
locations all over the world including Germany, the US, Latvia, Brazil,
Italy, Canada. They represent places where you can bring your
broken items (electronics, clothing, tools) and have them repaired by
volunteers – and also have coffee.
Existing Research
Existing research on cafes is sporadic, but I have made an attempt to
start collecting relevant literature (key articles are listed at the end of
this document).
An ESRC project, “Cappuccino Community” conducted by Eric Laurier
and Chris Philo (Laurier and Philo, 2005) ran from 2003-2005
produced a number of outputs around the use of cafes spaces – it was
largely a study of human behaviour in café spaces, and they used a
range of methods to explore how these spaces were used, and the
different roles people play in cafés.
Content: Alignment
Line spacing = 0.9 The first Dutch repair café was opened in 2009 and there are now locations all over the world
including Germany, the US, Latvia, Brazil, Italy, Canada. They represent places where you can
bring your broken items (electronics, clothing, tools) and have them repaired by volunteers – and
also have coffee.
Line spacing = 1 The first Dutch repair café was opened in 2009 and there are now locations all over the world
including Germany, the US, Latvia, Brazil, Italy, Canada. They represent places where you can
bring your broken items (electronics, clothing, tools) and have them repaired by volunteers – and
also have coffee.
Line spacing =1.1
The first Dutch repair café was opened in 2009 and there are now locations all over the world
including Germany, the US, Latvia, Brazil, Italy, Canada. They represent places where you can
bring your broken items (electronics, clothing, tools) and have them repaired by volunteers – and
also have coffee.
.
Content: Alignment
The first Dutch repair café was opened in 2009 and there are now locations
all over the world including Germany, the US, Latvia, Brazil, Italy, Canada.
They represent places where you can bring your broken items (electronics,
clothing, tools) and have them repaired by volunteers – and also have
coffee.
The first Dutch repair café was opened in 2009 and there are now locations
all over the world including Germany, the US, Latvia, Brazil, Italy, Canada.
They represent places where you can bring your broken items (electronics,
clothing, tools) and have them repaired by volunteers – and also have
coffee.
Content: Formatting
• Use a maximum of 2 fonts for your poster
• Set headings in bold
• Use italics ,underlining and CAPITALS sparingly
• Break up any large areas of text with subheadings
• Remember that the text needs to be visible from 2
metres
Prepare your images
Images and Copyright
Flickr Creative Commons:
https://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
Flickr: The Commons
https://www.flickr.com/commons
Google Advanced Image Search
https://www.google.com/advanced_image_search
Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Graphs
0
5
10
15
20
25
A B C D E
Series1
Series2
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
A B C D E
Axis
title
Axis title
Series1
Series2
Tables
A B C D E
1 25 23 17 10 2
2 20 22 10 12 15
3 21 12 5 23 15
4 5 14 6 9 17
A B C D E
1 25 23 17 10 2
2 20 22 10 12 15
3 21 12 5 23 15
4 5 14 6 9 17
Layout
c
c
Title, authors, contact details
Introduction
Method
Results
Conclusion
Image
Graph
Table References
Layout
c
c
Title, authors, contact details
Introduction
Method
Results
Conclusion
Image
Graph
Table References
Layout
c
c
Layout
c
c
“A clean layout speaks to an
uncluttered mind, and that's
who you want to talk to at
meetings”
Colin Purrington, Evolutionary
Biologist
Colour scheme
Blue on red appears blurry to the
eye.
Yellow on white is hard to read.
Red on Blue appears blurry to
the human eye.
White on black can sometimes
be useful.
Checking the details
• Have you checked for typos?
• Have you used headings to orient readers and convey
major points?
• Have you broken your poster up into sections?
• Have you displayed all your graphs, pictures, photographs
in context?
• Have you included your full contact information?
• Have you acknowledged al your contributors?
• Have you included names and logos of funding
organisations?
• Have you included references?
• Have you checked it is the right size?
Where to start?
Key Questions
• What is the most interesting
or important issue/finding
from my research I want to
display in the poster?
• What kind of information can
I convey on the poster?
• How can I visually share my
research with the audience?
Should I use graphs, images,
diagrams?
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Publisher
Adobe Illustrator
Inkscape
http://www.nuigalway.ie/remedi/poster/design1_layout.html
A short video: planning
Online resources:
• Guide to Creating Academic Posters Using Microsoft PowerPoint
https://www.stir.ac.uk/media/schools/is/documents/CreatingAcademicPost
ersUsingPowerPoint.pdf
• Making an academic research poster using Power Point (video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqgjgwIXadA#t=512
• Poster Design Handbooks:
http://www.nuigalway.ie/remedi/poster/media/Poster_Design_Manual.pdf
• Postgraduate Poster Support website:
http://www.nuigalway.ie/remedi/poster/index.html
Infographics
What are infographics?
“If you’ve read a newspaper or blog, flipped through a magazine,
or used social media recently, you’ve likely come across
infographics – those self – contained pictorials that tell you about
the gist of the story or concept at a glance” (Smiciklas), 2012
“An infographic is defined
as a visualization of data
or ideas that tries to
convey complex
information to an
audience in a manner
than can be quickly
consumed and easily
understood”
(Smiciklas, 2012).
Source: DfID (2013)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/11238612796/sizes/
o/
Fore more examples see:
http://www.rgs.org/OurWork/Schools/Teaching+resources/Teaching+resources.htm
Rise of the infographic
A useful tool to disseminate information from research, and
teaching materials, in a more visual manner than traditional
publication methods.
Source: Google Trends (2015)
The tools: Tableau
Tableau: http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/
IPad App: Vizable: http://vizable.tableau.com/
Source: New Scientist (2011)
All available from the Tableau website
Creating your own
infographics
Infographics are created for
different purposes. Whatever the
purpose of the infographic these
are some things to consider.
Make the theme, story or message
clear
Infographics need to have a clear
theme, story or message. It is
important to think about what the
purpose of your infographic is and
what you want to showcase before
you start your design.
Creating your own infographics
It is a good idea to story board your idea before you
start creating anything digitally.
Creating your own
infographics
• Consider your audience
• Make it visually appealing
• Consider the size
• Consider simplicity
• Use your data effectively
• Consider the impact
Source: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/an-original-
duckumentary-infographic-all-about-ducks/8040/
10 Tips for Creating Infographics
1) Sketch out a draft storyboard on paper before creating your digital design.
2) Be clear - have a title that is likely to 'grab' your audience.
3) Be concise - restrict the amount of ideas you are going to include.
4) Try to use different graphics to tell your story.
5) Limit your colour palette to keep the design simple.
6) Limit the amount of font styles used.
7) Try not to use too much text.
8) Only use data relevant to your infographic
9) Use simple graphics and icons that relate to your data
10) If you have a lot of information to convey consider breaking the infographic
into sections.
A simple way to create infographics:
Microsoft Publisher and Inkscape
The Noun Project: http://thenounproject.com/
Inkscape
http://www.inkscape.org/en/
+
=
Useful books:
Cool Infographics:
Effective Communication
with Data Visualization and
Design, 2013, Randy Krum
Infographics for
Dummies, 2014 ,Justin
Beegel
The Power of
Infographics: Using
Pictures to Communicate
and Connect with Your
Audiences, 2012, Mark
Smickilas
Visualize This: The Flowing
Data Guide to Design,
Visualization and Statistics,
2011, Nathan Yau
Data Points: Visualization
That Means Something,
2013, Nathan Yau
Infographics: The
Power of Visual
Storytelling, 2012,
Jason Lankow, Josh
Ritchie and Ross
Crooks
A Daily Infographic
http://dailyinfographic.com/
The Office for National Statistics
Infographic Guidelines:
http://theidpblog.files.wordpress.co
m/2013/10/infographic-guidelines-
v1-0.pdf
Cool Infographics:
http://www.coolinfographics.com/
Visualizing.org:
http://www.visualizing.org/
Useful websites:
http://www.theguardian.com/guardian-
masterclasses/data-visualisation-courses
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/dat
a-visualisation
The Guardian
Questions?
@jennywrenwatts
Available to download from :
https://www.academia.edu/8124962/Infographics_An_Introduction