1. Spatial Thinking and Communication
IAT 106
Spatial Thinking and Communication
Spring 2015
Poster Design Tips
AMT Project
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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2. Where to Find Poster Template
On the course website
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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3. Where to Find Poster Template
Reminder: -Poster is 24 X 36 inches – Vertical Format or Portrait
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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4. Making a Great Poster is Fun and Can Certainly be a Challenge!
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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5. What is Wrong with this Poster?

6. Better!
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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7. Designing Your Poster A GREAT POSTER IS SUCCINCT!
Studies show that you have only 10 seconds to grab and retain your audience's attention so make the title prominent, include clear images and legible text and consider size.
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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8. Designing Your Poster A GREAT POSTER IS READABLE
Readability is a measure of how easily the ideas flow from one item to the next.
Text that has lots of grammatical problems, complex or passive sentence structure, and misspellings is "hard to read".
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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9. Designing Your Poster A GREAT POSTER IS LEGIBLE
If a text is legible, it can be deciphered.
For example, an old book may not be legible if the paper has corroded or the lettering has faded.
A common error in poster presentations is use of fonts that are too small to be read from 6-10 feet away, a typical distance for reading a poster.
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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10. Designing Your Poster
A GREAT POSTER IS WELL ORGANIZED (IT REQUIRES SPATIAL THINKING!)
Spatial organization makes the difference between reaching 95% rather than just 5% of your audience
Consider how the elements are grouped.
Are they too close together? Is there enough space between elements so that they can be distinguished?
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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11. Steps for Creating an Effective Poster
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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12. Designing Your Poster Define your Audience
Effective communication starts with knowing who your audience is.
At poster sessions there is intense competition for audience attention. In their first 10 seconds your audience will determine whether to stay and explore your content or leave.
If they stay you have 30 seconds to secure their attention by conveying an overall understanding of your subject matter.
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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13. Designing Your Poster Distill Your Message
 Considering the fact that your audience has only a limited time to view your poster (10 seconds) if there was one thing you could say on the poster,what would it be?
Select a statement, photograph or diagram that is sure to attract your audience ’s attention. In visual composition, we call this the focal item.
Your focus item should be enlarged so that it will occupy at least 15% of the area of the finished poster. This can be a single item e.g. photo, sketch or a group of items combined.
Remember that your audience will not approach you if it is not clear what your topic or theme is from a “safe distance” of 10 feet (3 meters)
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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14. Designing Your Poster Design for Impact: Colours
Colour should highlight,separate,define and associate information,if it begins to compete with your information for attention then it is too strong.
Colours may look different on your screen than they will in your print.
Some colour printers also vary in how they define colours or hues.
Test print a smaller poster to check for colour scheme.
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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15. Designing Your Poster Visual Contrast and Colours Title Bar:
Be careful with low-contrast combinations e.g. yellow text on white.
Better: You can use dark, saturated blues, greens and blacks as backgrounds with white text superimposed.
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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16. Designing Your Poster Better Use of Contrast
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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17. Designing Your Poster Visual Contrast and Colours
Avoid: Extensive use of busy patterns or textures for background.
The background below can make the text hard to read and the poster hard to follow:
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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18. Designing Your Poster Leaving Space
Effective posters are spacious and easy to follow
Adequate clear space will direct attention to key elements
Remember the eye looks for edges, so align photographs, headings, text materials.
Designing Your Poster
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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19. Designing Your Poster Leaving Space
Leave a minimum of 1.5 inches (4 cm) of clear space around the inside edge of your poster as not plotter will print right to the edge of the paper. This can vary with plotters – some can do 0.5 inches or even less.
Some poster 'experts' suggest that if there is about 30% text, 40% graphics and 20% empty space, you are doing well.
Designing Your Poster
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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20. Designing Your Poster Creating Legible Text
Information should flow from left to right and from top to bottom
Use Columns: They allow readers who may be unfamiliar with your subject matter and method of research to easily follow the direction of your information
Avoid writing headers and subheads all in Capitals.
Designing Your Poster
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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21. Designing Your Poster Creating Legible Text: Hierarchy of Type
largest font size- Title
next largest font size - Section headings
medium font size - Supporting material
smallest font size - Details
Designing Your Poster
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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22. Designing Your Poster For the major sections of the poster:
Title: pts Authors: pts Sub-headings: pts Body text: pts Captions: pts
As for legibility, the following sizes are a good starting point:
To be legible 6 feet use 30 pt. To be legible 10 feet use 48 pt. To be legible 12 feet use 60 pt. To be legible 14 feet use 72 pt.
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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23. Creating Legible Text Avoid:
Ornate fonts (especially serifs) which are difficult to read (use sans-serif for headers and sub-headers.
Ornate fonts can work well on posters like this one, where the font reinforces the mostly graphical message.
Creating Legible Text
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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24. Creating Legible Text Avoid:
Extremely long titles, font sizes below 24 points (header and sub-header)
Creating Legible Text
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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25. Creating Legible Text Avoid:
Excessive use of different fonts (keep it to 2 or 3 max.)
Creating Legible Text
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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26. Creating Legible Text Avoid: Single words highlighted within the text
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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27. Designing Your Poster Using Graphics for Impact
No photo, graphic or chart should be smaller than 5X5 inches (13X13 cm) on the overall poster (24X36 inches)
Graphics should be attractive, clear and specific
Crop and enlarge photographs to eliminate unnecessary information and focus attention on significant details
Captions: Some of your graphics or images may be ambiguous, so provide captions for your graphics
Designing Your Poster
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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28. Designing Your Poster Scanning Images
When scanning materials for a poster, 300 dpi (dots per inch) is sufficient for 5x7 inch photos.
If you are scanning your sketches, use gray-scale for best results.
DO NOT use the line-art option as it will overemphasize your iso or ortho grid lines.
Use the contrast tools in Photoshop, Illustrator or PowerPoint to bring out your lines if the scan is poor.
Avoid: images from the web, or certain low-resolution images from your blog. When printed large, they look soft and pixelated.
Designing Your Poster
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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29. Designing Your Poster Printing and Colour Schemes
When setting up your file for Document Solutions, use the following settings
Save the file as as PDF. A TIFF or PSD file will take longer to load and slow down the printer when spooling. PSD’s are not compressed.
RGB vs CMYK.
CMYK is used for the offset printing process. The colour scheme is generally darker with more contrast. As opposed to RGB, CMYK adds a fourth colour, BLACK.
RGB (Red, Green, Blue) uses additive colours. They will print, but the colours will not be as realistic and more saturated.
Designing Your Poster
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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30. Sources Cited:
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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31. Poster Checklist/Peer Review
IAT 106: Spatial Thinking – LDD
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