Making and Printing a Poster

• Use powerpoint to create your poster.
  • Here is a great little tutorial to get you started
  • http://depts.washington.edu/hsasf/posters/pdfs/poster_usepowerpoint.pdf
• Make one BIG slide (the meeting should specify maximum poster size)
  • Do this by going to File –> Page setup
• Minimum font size is 24 for text, much bigger for section headings.
• What goes on a poster?

a.      Title

b.      Your name, any co-authors

c.      University of Washington, other institutions you may have worked at

d.      Abstract

e.      Introduction/background

f.        Your methodology

g.      Your results

h.      Discussion of your results

i.        Conclusion/future work

j.        References

• Consider putting a small picture of yourself on your poster if you won’t be able to stand next to your poster for the entire meeting.
• People will look at the figures and read the captions, but likely won’t read big paragraphs of text.  Therefore, keep the text to a minimum.
• Dark text on a light background is easier to read, but a dark poster with a nice background picture will draw more people in.
• Printing on campus - http://depts.washington.edu/hsasf/posters/index.html
• The cheapest paper looks pretty bad. Matte and semi-gloss look pretty good.
• Always go and check the proof. Make sure your Greek letters and bullet points didn't convert to strange symbols, especially if you created the poster on a MAC or with linux.
• Give the printing people the powerpoint file--don't try to convert it to something else
• Don't forget to take a budget number when you go to pick it up
• Check out this awesome information
  • http://www.waspacegrant.org/posterdesign.html

 

Image Types

 

The basic thing to know here, sometimes images look terrible when blown-up big enough for a poster.  Make the images at 300 dpi if you can.

 

Details:

There are 2 ways your computer can define an image--as an array of pixels or an array of vectors. As you might expect, vectors can easily scale to any size and maintain the same shape, while pixels will look pixelated if expanded. PDF and Postscript are vector based, while jpegs, gifs, pngs, and fits are all pixel maps. Of course, it can be difficult to convert between the two types.

 

Whenever you go from vector based to pixel based, you need to do it at high resolution. And never go pixel based to vector. Never convert an image with text to a jpeg file. Jpegs compress large photos by averaging together neighboring pixels. If you use jpeg compression on stark lines (like text), it will blur out the lines and it won’t look good. Again, don't convert anything with text to a jpeg. Instead, use the png file type.

Save all images with at least 300dpi. Then, save the file as a png. Now you can drop that file into powerpoint and it should look good.

What to do during a conference

• Bring along black and white, paper-sized copies of your poster to give out. (see making a PDF from Powerpoint)
  • This allows people to remember your poster, your name, and your results.
• Stand next to your poster and smile
• People will come up and look at your poster. Practice a 3-minute summary/overview talk of your poster and tell it to them.
• Look at other posters and ask lots of questions. Don’t be shy!
• Seek out people who work at institutions you are interested in or who work on similar topics as you, and talk to them.  Network.

Putting Together a Talk

• Use figures, graphs, pictures, cartoons with little text
• Say it instead of putting the text on the page and making your audience read it (this is not true if you want to use the slideshow as notes for a class).
• You can use the notes feature to include text reminders and prompts for yourself.
• Use light colored text on a dark background. Black text on a white background will burn out the eyes of everyone in your audience. Come up with something a bit nicer, but don’t overdo the special effects.
• If you are displaying a graph, make all the lines really thick. No, thicker than that.
• Label the axis. If you can't see the labels, just go ahead and use powerpoint to overlay new labels!
• Colored lines are always better than different line styles
• Different colored points are better than different symbols

Making a PDF from Powerpoint

It's a good idea to bring along black and white copies of your poster to give out at meetings or conferences.  Converting to PDF is not under File -> Save like you might think.

On a Windows system in Powerpoint, click on Acrobat to the far right of File, and then convert to PDF. On a MAC, go to print, then in the bottom left of the print window is a little button called PDF.

 

Applying to Grad school

 

See http://depts.washington.edu/uwmcnair/guidebook.htm#gradschool for lots of useful tips.  Also, come in and talk to a Graduate Student Advisor (http://depts.washington.edu/eip/schedules.htm) for personal assistance.

 

Resumes, CVs, etc

The career center is the place for this.

See http://depts.washington.edu/careers/resumeresources/index.php