The Center for Social Science Computation and Research

Poster Printing Services @ CSSCR

CSSCR currently ONLY offers poster printing services to students of our constituent member departments and schools at no cost.

To avoid any delays, read and follow the terms laid out below before submitting your poster.

Posters should be submitted in a timely manner, one day in advance at the latest, to csscr@u.washington.edu.

Our department absorbs the cost of these posters. To keep this service free and available to as many students as possible, we ask that you abide by the following terms:

  • We cannot produce posters for other personal, non-academic professional, or commercial reasons. Posters must be used to communicate academic work at local, regional, national meetings, or for course projects that include a poster presentation.
  • WE WILL NOT PRINT POSTERS WITH A COLOR BACKGROUND. Posters should be set against a solid white background, or a light gradient. No full color or photographic backgrounds.
  • Allow at least one working day for your poster to be printed. There may be many students trying to print a poster at the same time as you, and printing posters takes a bit of time. Therefore, try to complete your poster early, and get it to CSSCR for printing as soon as possible. For example, if you turn it the file on a Friday, it will be ready by Monday afternoon. This timing assumes you have followed the guidelines below. If not, there may be additional delays.
  • Posters shall be 36 by 24 inches, in either portrait or landscape orientation.
    • The exception to this rule shall be for posters printed for research conferences or symposia outside of the University of Washington. Please include
    • We are aware that the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium requires dimensions that do not conform to our 36 by 24 inch standard. You will need to manually trim your poster to meet their specific requirements.
  • Exercise prudence in using blocks of solid colors. Ink is the most expensive consumable when making posters. For large titles, consider using outlines letters or a pastel color instead of a solid color. Bold fonts should be used for emphasis of particular items, rather than for all text in the poster. CSSCR Staff will have final arbitration over what constitutes an excessive usage of ink in a poster draft, and will request that you reformat and resubmit.
  • Submit your 24×36″ as a .PDF and either a .ODP or .PPT* file when submitting. Submitting two formats has been helpful in dealing with bizarre formatting issues that have otherwise prevented posters from being printed in the past.
  • Poster emails should be formatted with the following guidelines:
    • Subject line: Poster request – your name
    • Email body:
      • Your name
      • Undergraduate OR Graduate Student
      • Course department and number (i.e. ANTH 512)
      • If not for a course, include your departmental affiliation or major and the purpose of your poster
      • If the poster is for a conference or symposium, please provide the name of said event and the size requirements.

For a quick guide on the poster making process, students are encouraged to read Creating a Poster in PowerPoint 2010, courtesy of Eastern Michigan University.