Poster Research

Making a great poster can be fun and is certainly a challenge!

A GREAT POSTER IS...

readable,

legible,

well organized, and

succinct.

I. WAYS TO MAKE A POSTER ARE

make your own.

Designing the poster panels deserves consideration PDF, PPT (21 MB)>. Most posters are most quickly made using some kind of computer software. A word processing program plus a few graphics packages (e.g. Microsoft Powerpoint, Macromedia Freehand, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe PageMaker) are important tools. Of these, Powerpoint has the least sophisticated graphics options. If you have not tried computer graphics or are just starting out, find someone whose poster you like and ask them what they use and if they like it.

II. CHOOSING BETWEEN TWO POPULAR FORMATS:

a large format poster or

a multiple panel poster.

III. TO BEGIN:

decide what the main message is,

Keep it short and sweet and make this your title! Use the active voice (i.e., avoid "ing" on the ends of verbs) and avoid the verb "to be" whenever possible.

measure the space you have,

Regardless of poster format, lay out the space physically as well as on paper to double-check yourself. If you can, make the poster flexible enough to change the size by adding or omitting panels or elements. This flexibility is handy if you are going to more than one meeting, if the poster boards are not exactly the size advertised, if the meetings have different in size requirements for posters, or if you wish to update your data between meetings.

lay out your panels crudely,

Before you actually spend time making the final panels of the poster, take pieces of paper that are about the right size and see if you can actually make it all fit. This will save you a lot of time in the long run.

begin to make individual components of the poster!

V. FONT CHOICES GIVE YOU OPTIONS WITH

size,

Font sizes need to be big to be effective. A good rule is to stand back from your own poster: if you, who are familiar with the material, cannot easily read it from 6 feet away, your audience will certainly not be able to.

COLOUR

Ways to add color,

A color border or background is a fast way to add color to a poster. Choosing colors that do not compete with your data, that look good once printed, and that color blind people can see is wise.

If you opted for a multiple panel poster, then LaserFoil allows you to make your printed words from a laser printer come out in color. Available in mat, glossy, and "prism" finishes, LaserFoil can add pizzaz to a poster. Colored graphic tape or dots, and white arrows (Chartpak, Lettraset) can be quickly applied to poster elements to draw attention to the elements you wish to.

VII. CHECK TWO THINGS BEFORE YOU “ASSEMBLE” THE POSTER

have others review it for you,

do take a moment for ethical considerations.

VIII. FINISHING YOUR POSTER

It is trivial to assemble a poster once you have decided on and made all the individual elements. Be sure to give yourself enough time to finish the poster, say 1-3 days, so you have time to reprint it if necessary to revise color or content, or to simply get into the printing queue!

Ancillary Task - Poster Research

I have tried to research local newspaper posters, but there does not seem to be a long standing market for Local News Posters. Mainstream newspapers do have some posters, however institutionally there is no evidence that there are posters made for community papers. Therefore, as there are no conventions to the task I am approaching I am using the knowledge that I know about Local Newspapers and transferring this knowledge to my poster.