1. Things to Consider When Making a Poster: Effectively Communicating Your Message
- Things you might want to consider when creating your ARIA poster
- Great skill to be building
- Distill ARIA experience into something that is:
- concise
- visually appealing
- effectively communicates your research to your audience in a way that will hopefully make a good impression
- Remember that you can get quite creative with these posters e.g. student who used a projector, another who distributed poetry as a handout
- Focus today on general best practices for effectively communicating your message with a poster
David Greene, MLIS
Liaison Librarian, Humanities and Social Sciences Library

2. The poster… Distills ARIA experience into something that is: concise
visually appealing
effectively communicates your research to your audience
It’s not an information dump!
Get creative!
Focus today is on general best practices for effectively communicating your message with a poster
These are suggestions, not a prescription!

3. Preparing Your Material
Your material will dictate the design of your poster.
Your material will dictate the design of your poster.
- Different for those doing social sci, humanities, data work, etc

4. Have a clear outline of where you are going.
- Before thinking about the design of the poster, it’s best to have the text as streamlined as possible
- Having worked on this all summer, you’ll have a lot to say
write out all sections and then reduce them down as much as you can
Keep in mind this will be for passersby who will be socializing and standing
No big chunks of text
you yourself are an integral part of your poster presentation.
Hand-outs
Have a clear outline of where you are going.
Reduce your text to a few salient points.

5. #1 MISTAKE is making your poster too long
Don’t crowd the poster with words – the use of blank space and visual elements is integral to creating a successful poster.
Keep in mind the size and orientation of the area you have allotted for each section as you’re writing them up.
Editing can be a pain, but take the time to go over what you’ve written and think about how you might say it more efficiently – it’s rare that what you write the first time around will be the most clear and concise way of saying what you need to say.
800 words??

6. You yourself are an integral part of your poster!

7. Keep it simple! Immediate color appeal Uncomplicated diagram
Low text density
A section is set apart or highlighted

8. Software • QuarkXPress • CorelDraw • Indesign • Freehand • Illustrator
• PowerPoint
• Photoshop
• CorelDraw
• Freehand
• OmniGraffle
• LaTeX
• Inkscape
To design your own poster you should be proficient in a program like CorelDraw, Indesign, Quark Express, Illustrator, etc.
There is a lot of software out there to help you create posters, although not all of it is free. Here are a few example which may be worth checking out.
Each has its strengths and weaknesses, and the learning curves vary.
OR: Try

9. PowerPoint Templates www.postersession.com
PowerPoint has an intuitive interface which I’m sure you’re all familiar with.
However, it can be difficult to start from a PowerPoint presentation, and you may run into some formatting headaches.
If you do insist on using PowerPoint, there are free templates you can download which can help.
You can find some at postersession.com.

10. Common Issues and Layout
Leave margins
Text running off the edges makes viewer uncomfortable.

12. Font tips TITLE IN LEGIBLE FONT HEADING TEXT
Chose a clean, sans serif font that has bold and Italic options (possibly Semi-bold or extra bold).

13. TITLE IN BASIC FONT TITLE IN BASIC FONT
HEADING
HEADING
TEXT
TEXT
- Use a few well chosen colors that compliment each other or contrast nicely.
- Note again the use of colour to offset the different sections and headings.
- The data charts are the focal point of this poster.

14. Highlight important items
- Highlighting or visually clarifying can help guide the eye in discovering important information.
- Note how the title pops out, the graphs draw the eye and the tables are offset in white.
Highlight important items

15. Judicious use of illustrations adds appeal and interest.
Illustrations - one or 2 may energize a poster depending on what you are illustrating
Resolution
Photos or jpgs, including logos, should be of a reasonable file size -
Imagine how large you would like to see the image on your poster and make sure it will be sharp at that size (150 dpi at the projected output size)
Change all colors to CMYK instead of RGB

16. Grouping or overlapping items can add dimension
Grouping images so that they function as a unit will prevent a scattered look.
Overlapping with a light shadow can add dimension
This can also save space or allow the images to be larger.
Grouping or overlapping items can add dimension

17. Leave some white space if your logos need a white background.
Make logos smaller rather than larger.
If a white background is required, leave a white space for them.
Make sure resolution is sufficient.
Leave some white space if your logos need a white background.

18. The purpose of a poster is communication.
Attract attention by being, at a glance, easy to capture.
You are competing with a number of other posters for the viewer’s time. Being viewer-friendly is important.
Dare to be different. Be bold. Use a brilliant color.

19. TITLE pt
LOGO
LOGO
AUTHORS pt
AFILIATIONS 9-10 pt
HEADING pt
TEXT pt
HEADING
TEXT
HEADING
TEXT
HEADING
TEXT
Here is an example of how you might mock up your poster.
You can start on an 8 ½ by 11, but this will likely be enlarged by 500% or so.
You’ll have this for reference when I share the slides with you later on.
Acknowledgements
References or
Contact info pt

20. Dummy text
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum

21. Possible Sections to Include
Abstract
Introduction/Background
Study Purpose/Objectives
Methodology/Study Design
Results/Data Analysis (Charts, Graphs, Quotes, etc…)
Key Findings
Final Thoughts/Conclusions
References/Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Not all of these are going to apply to everyone
ABSTRACT will distill all the most vital facts to know about your project into a single informative paragraph.
INTRODUCTION will provide general background and peripheral information that is important for contextualizing the research and communicating how it came to be undertaken and why it’s important.
“What is this project about on a general level?”
PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES will bring your specific project into focus and discuss the goals of the project itself. It answers the question
“What is this project trying to achieve?”
METHODOLOGY section discusses the techniques or methods (literature review, field work, data analysis, etc)
“what methods did you use to go about getting the results that you’re presenting here?”
important to be clear about one’s methodology, because without a solid methodology it isn’t possible to have meaningful results.
RESULTS/DATA ANALYSIS section presents findings in a visual manner using charts or graphs.
If you’re working in the humanities, you might not have data that plots nicely onto a graph, so using something like important quotations from the authors or historians or historical figures you studied might be an interesting alternative.
This “section” could also be re-envisioned as a more interactive component involving something like the projector or poems that were handed out by previous ARIA students.
KEY FINDINGS section will discuss or interpret the data presented in raw form in your results section. You’ll want to use this section to analyze the results of your research and to highlight important aspects of it that might not be obvious to those who are unfamiliar with the project.
CONCLUSION will tie the preceding content together and provide some final thoughts about your experience, and perhaps on future directions that you or another researcher might take in taking the research further.
REFERENCES section will include any works you cited or made reference to on the poster itself.
Finally, you might want to include an ACKNOLEDGEMENTS section to pay respect to some of the people who helped to support you throughout the research process, including your professor.

22. Possible Sections to Include
ABSTRACT
Distills all the most vital facts to know about your project into a single, informative paragraph
Important element of the poster – if someone were to read only one section of the poster, it would be this one!
Make this as concise as possible

23. Possible Sections to Include
INTRODUCTION / BACKGROUND
Provides general background and peripheral information
Contextualizes the research
Communicates how the project came to be undertaken and why it is important
“What is this project about on a general level?”

24. Possible Sections to Include
PROJECT PURPOSE / OBJECTIVES
Brings your specific project into focus and discuss the goals of the project itself. It answers the question
“What is this project trying to achieve?”
Can often be distilled into a bulleted list

25. Possible Sections to Include
METHODOLOGY / PROJECT DESIGN
Discusses the techniques or methods (literature review, field work, data analysis, etc)
Important to be clear about one’s methodology, because without a solid methodology it isn’t possible to have meaningful results
“What methods did you use to go about getting the results that you’re presenting here?”

26. Possible Sections to Include
RESULTS / DATA ANALYSIS
Presents findings in a visual manner using charts or graphs.
Humanities projects: be creative! Quotations, images, interactive elements, etc. can be used to illustrate projects which do not rely on graphable data.
Could also be re-envisioned as a more interactive component involving something like the projector or poems that were handed out by previous ARIA students.

27. Possible Sections to Include
KEY FINDINGS
Discusses or interprets the data presented in raw form in your results section
Use this section to analyze the results of your research and to highlight important aspects of it that might not be obvious to those who are unfamiliar with the project

28. Possible Sections to Include
FINAL THOUGHTS / CONCLUSIONS
Ties the preceding content together and provides some final thoughts about your experience
Presents future directions that you or another researcher might take in taking the research further

29. Possible Sections to Include
REFERENCES / BIBLIOGRAPHY
Includes citations of any works you referenced on the poster itself.

30. Possible Sections to Include
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Used to pay respect to some of the people who helped to support you throughout the research process, including your professor

31. You don’t need to use this template!

32. Print Out Options - examples
Paper
Paper with lamination
Cloth
Imported items include:
Any jpegs or logos
All fonts used

33. Other things to think about…
• If it can be avoided, go no larger than 42 – 45” in height. • Eight feet long is difficult to follow across. • It is not necessary to use of all the space allotted. Better to make the poster a comfortable proportion. • Before output, make a PDF and enlarge it on your screen to 400% to ensure image quality is not lost. • Consider preparing handouts, and having business cards on hand when presenting your poster.

34. Places to have posters produced professionally
Allow 2 days for output
McGill Printing Services
MP Photo Reproductions
210 de la Gauchetière O
Any size
Manomax
1117 Sainte-Catherine St. West, (corner Peel)
Suite 312
Montreal (Qc) H3B 1H9
Tel
Max size is 36” x infinite
For cloth output only • Allow 1 week for output
Contact image
185, rue du Séminaire
Dave Topolinsky

35. Questions
Thank you!