Creating posters to present scientific data
The first draft
Do an analogue first draft
Most people are not so experienced in using a mouse and graphics tablet to create a layout. So a blank sheet of paper, in the proportions of the poster, and the printed and cut text and figures is a good way to start planning your poster layout.
Practical exercise:
- Margins and rough structure
- Lay out the margins: Draw a line parallel to the edge 1.5 cm from it. The areas outside remain blank. They will not be printed on the poster. The usable area is inside these margins.
- Now cut a sheet the size of the usable area. Cut two strips from it, each about 1/5 the height of the usable surface. These form the header and footer areas.
- Now cut off another 1.5 cm off the sheet (off the top). The remaining part is the body.
- Label all three parts. Push the body into the middle, so that it is the same distance from the header and footer.
Dividing up the body
Each chapter gets a box. The easiest way is to arrange the chapters in rectangular or square boxes, if you want with rounded corners. The reading direction, i.e. the order in which the boxes are read, should be intuitive. This is either from top left line by line to bottom right or from the top left column by column to the bottom right.
Of course, a more complex layout is also conceivable. But this presupposes that you are confident using the selected software to be able to arrange the more complex shapes precisely and fill them sensibly with text, and that the reading direction is also intuitive here. Numbering the boxes can help here.
NB: If you’re unsure, it makes sense to choose a simpler layout and implement it cleanly and consistently rather than investing a lot of time in a more complex layout without being able to implement it cleanly.
Don’t worry about blanks!
You don’t want to give the impression that you don’t have any findings to present. On the other hand, it makes little sense to present a large number of figures and results just for the sake of filling the poster. Especially if their message is not clear or if they even call the core message into question. If the data situation does not allow you to draw a clear conclusion, this is just as much a finding that needs to be presented accordingly.
A poster cannot claim to be exhaustive. Nevertheless, the findings need to guide the reader to the core message or conclusion and not raise more questions than they answer. They should follow a strict, straightforward line of argument.
If there is still space left over after all the relevant content has been incorporated, you can use this for more generous spacing, larger fonts or figures.
What size should figures be?
You’ve got the right size if the reader can grasp the core message of the figure quickly and easily - even from a distance of 3 m from the poster. There is no set size, as it depends on how detailed the figure is.
Example: Panel of 20 microscope images (4 rows and 5 columns)
The person looking at the poster needs to be able to quickly grasp the key point of each picture. So each picture needs to be large enough. A panel of 20 images will probably be very dominant on the poster. Maybe too dominant? Ask yourself: Do you really need all the images or can you leave some out?
When sizing the figure, you also need to bear in mind that the people looking at the poster will probably be scientists, but probably have a different research focus and therefore not be able to immediately grasp every detail and its significance in all its complexity.
To get an idea of whether everything is clearly visible, print out the image in the size you want to display it on the poster. Hang up the printout and look at it from at least 3 m away. If necessary, ask other people if they are comfortable with the size.