Academic posters

Learning outcomes: Learn…
- …a few basics about academic posters.
Sources: How to Create a Research Poster, Creating Scientific Posters, Faulkes (2021) (best reading!)

1 Research posters & poster sessions

Most conferences have poster sessions
- “Choice” of talk vs. poster depends on: type of project, size of conference, your comfort level in different situations, goals of presenting the project
Usually, you stand beside your poster to explain & tell the story (see here)
Research posters: summarize research concisely and attractively
- Aims: Highlight your research; Generate discussion; Get feedback; Network
- Posters facilitate one-on-one conversations!
Twitter poll: What’s the average time you WANT to spend talking to a presenter at a conference poster?

What is/are my research question(s)?
What is the most important/interesting/astounding finding from my research project?
How can I visually share my research with conference attendees? Should I use charts, graphs, photos, images?
What kind of information can I convey during my talk/conversations that will complement my poster?

Please discuss with your neighbor: What do you like/dislike about the posters?
More examples in Faulkes (2021) for inspiration
- Fig. 1.2/p. 4; Fig. 4.5/p. 31; Fig. 6.1/p. 57; Fig. 7.6/p. 70; Fig. 7.11/p. 77; Fig. 7.12/7.13/p. 78

Insights

Trust poster
- Bad: Too much text; No explicit research questions;
Polarization poster
- Bad: Not enough text?; Does not work without author’s explanation; Graphs too complex?; Structure not clear;
- Paper: https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/e5vp8

Important information should be readable from about 10 feet away
Title is short and draws interest
Word count: 300 to 800 words
Text is clear and to the point
Use of bullets, numbering, and headlines facilitate reading
Effective use of graphics, color and fonts
Consistent and clean layout
Includes acknowledgments, your name and institutional affiliation
Follow classic structure: Intro/puzzle/research question, theory, methods, results, conclusion (familiarity!)
Best poster awards: Google image search (e.g., see here)

Format: Usually A0, wide or long (84cm x 118cm)¹
- Set size from the start in your software, e.g., in PowerPoint (Slide size/Foliengröße; cf. Faulkes (2021), Fig. 5.3/p. 50)
Color: Generally stick to dark colors (Q: Which colors should we avoid?)
Font family: Stick to plain fonts (avoid Comic Sans), not more than 2-3 fonts
Font size and style: See next slide
Spacing: Leave breathing room around your text (less is more)
- Gives clear distinction between sections of your poster
Alignment: Use left-alignment on text to prevent awkward spacing and stretching of font

Use readable font (1 point/pt is equal to 1/72 of an inch)
- Title: ~80pt
- Author: ~40pt
- Section titles: ~60pt
- Text: ~36pt
Typefaces can be used to create distinctive look
Sans serif fonts generally perform well on posters
Setting text too close together is a common error

Posters = visual medium → graphics provide fastest, best way to inform viewers
Posters = large format → make sure images are not distorted or pixelated
Take your own photos/graphs when possible (and respect copyright/licensing)
Font within graph should have minimum font size
Ideally 150-300dpi resolution (Test: Big display or zoom in)
- Set other aspects in ggplot (e.g., width, height, font size, captions etc.)
General rules for good (data) visualization apply!

Presenting data
- Simple/common graphs often better than more nuanced but uncommon graphs
- Tables are bad (if possible do not use them!)
- Flowcharts are an underused way of showing processes
- Anything can be an infographic (e.g., data collection, measures, hypotheses, etc.)
Colors
- Color = accessibility issue (pick color-blind friendly colors)
- Powerful but easy to misuse (try out different schemes, ColorBrewer!)
  - Make sure colors reflect scale type (nominal/qualitative = distinct colors)
  - Possible to exclude white for sequential colors
- Make sure connected elements/categories are consistently colored (e.g., highly educated)
- Printed ink colors can look differently from screen colors
Beyond paper: Poster not limited to paper; online resources, video may provide interactivity

Layout
- Top of poster is more valuable space than bottom
- People expect consistent path from top left of to bottom right
Grids
- Make grid, then line up edge of every element on poster to at least one other element
- White space is not wasted space (organizes your content!)
- Boxes usually look desperate rather than organized (but..)
Background: Busy background (e.g., photograph) obscures content
Title bars
- Title most important part of poster (all that most people will ever read!)
- People care less about other information usually stuck in title bars (author etc.)
- Institutional logo less interesting than you think it is
Ideally: Visit a poster session around you!
More discussion by Faulkes: Blocks of text; Sections; Images and graphics; Fine-tuning; Before you print; Printing; Travel; Networking and presentation; After the conference

…try to get different examples from colleagues
- Beware of priming (do not simply copy your colleagues)
PowerPoint (Templates: 1, 2, 3)
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign (never used them..)
Open Source Alternatives: OpenOffice as free alternative to MS Office
R
- Possible but takes time!
- Academic conference posters using {posterdown} (2022)
- How to make a poster in R (2018)
- Using Shiny to Create an Academic Poster (2022) (Poster example)
- Packages & templates: Poster templates
  - always check recent activity on github and who is involved
  - posterdown
  - pagedown

Faulkes, Zen. 2021. Better Posters: Plan, Design and Present an Academic Poster. Pelagic Publishing Ltd.