Making Science Posters

A scientific/engineering poster is an excellent way to present a project because it combines the graphics and images of the project with you right there to explain things. It is also a great way to get informal and formal feedback on your work as a poster session generates much more discussion than a formal presentation. The typical poster is a sheet of paper, 3 ft. tall by 4 ft. wide. The poster contains text and images that describe the project. As with PowerPoint presentation, text is minimized in favor of graphics. Poster sessions are common at professional conferences. The typical poster session has a roomful of large bulletin boards (poster stands) for tacking up your work. You stand next to your poster during the poster session. Conference attendees wander around and stop at the posters that interest them. When someone is stopped in front of your poster, you can briefly explain your project and answer questions.

Web sites that explain how to make a poster

Poster guidelines

Preparing Professional Scientific Posters

How to Prepare a Poster

Poster Presentations

Developing a Poster Presentation

Some tips

  1. Minimize complete sentences
  2. Use newspaper headline style for bullets; maximizes info and minimizes words
  3. Create poster as a single PowerPoint slide using a custom paper size of 36" tall by 48" wide
  4. Use clear push pins or small map tacks with black heads to mount poster to the board

More tips from "How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 5th ed" by R. Day.

  1. Short, attention-grabbing title
  2. Title as banner that stretches across the entire width of the top
  3. Can read title from 10 ft away
  4. Include authors and affilitation in smaller font
  5. Lots of white space
  6. Make clear what should be viewed first, second, ...
  7. Contains the highlights of the project; you are there in person to fill in the details
  8. Crowds gather around simple, well-illustrated posters; cluttered wordy posters are ignored.

At a Poster Session

Let people look for 30 seconds or so at your poster, then ask, "Can I explain the project?". If so, go through the poster highlights in about 45 seconds, then go back in more detail if the audience member is interested. The typical audience member has very little time to see many, many posters so be sure to give them lots of opportunities to walk away. In other words, don't start out with a detailed, blow-by-blow description of the project that will keep the audience member tied down for 10 minutes.

Printing a large format poster (University of Minnesota specific)

Create your poster as a single PowerPoint slide whose dimensions are the same as the final printed poster.

The UMN ADCS Public computer lab in Coffman Rm B060 has a large format color printer priced at $10/linear foot for a 42 inch (41 inch printable) wide paper, one of the lowest cost options for printing a full size poster. Printer is available to all students. Definitely the way to go for posters. (ADCS printing info and more info)

Posters for conferences can be printed at Kinkos using their color banner printing service on polypropylene paper
$6/sq. ft. = $72 for 36"x48" (june 2005 prices). Create poster on single PowerPoint slide that is custom size = size of final poster (e.g. 36"x48"). Kinko's in Edina (a Kinko's Signs and Graphics Center) does a better job with colors than the Kinko's in Stadium Village. 24 hour turn-around time. (Kinko's)

There is a large format printer at the UMN Printing Servies Copy Center location in Coffman, another option for printing full size posters. Cost is about $8/sq. ft. Three day turnaround time. (Copy Center info)

If you have connections to the Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power, you may use their large format printer.

For a no-cost, but not very professional looking poster, Rm 2101 has a color printer that can produce 11x17 sheets. Use this option when there is no money to print a real poster. Think about best layout of the poster on an array of 11x17 sheets. Banner title will have to be jury rigged, possibly by taping sheets together. Contact Durfee secretary for logistics as s/he will have to run the print job for you. Leave plenty of time.

Samples

One or two sample posters are on the Durfee publication list site. No claims are made as to quality.