36×48″ presentation board

I went to an undergraduate poster session held at Plymouth State University the other day. We had printed about 20 posters for them, and I wanted to see how everything looked. The posters were terrific, and some excellent science was discussed.

The real cool thing to me was the presentation board. They used these “tent” style boards on top of a table, and they were terrific. The boards are 36×48″ in size, and allow a poster on each side, so they use space pretty efficiently. When the poster session was over, they fold up, and then in half, and go into a cardboard box that UPS will take. Pretty cool.

One suggestion, though. The boards are 36×48″ edge to edge, so a 36×48″ poster runs up and over the aluminum trim around. If we had printed the posters at 34.5×46, they would have been perfect!

Glossy Paper Poster

We’ve recently added glossy paper to your choices when you use our online ordering for research posters. It’s a hit! I must tell you, I never thought that so many people would prefer it.

Glossy paper really gives you a fantastic looking poster presentation. The colors are bright and happy, and everything just has a very classy look. I’m starting to become a convert myself, having printed a few dozen of them over the last few weeks.We really like how the research posters look when printed on glossy paper.

I always thought that the matte finish paper, which is quite a bit less expensive, gave a perfectly acceptable poster, and it does. There’s no question, though, that glossy paper research posters are an improvement. Our customers are telling us that, too.

We always resisted the glossy paper because it tended to smear as we handled the research posters in our shop. The ink took a while to dry, and it was easy to make a mess handling such large pieces of paper. Well, a great improvement in the last year has been “instant dry” glossy paper. Worth every penny, it’s dry as it comes off the machine, and the problems we once had have gone away. So, we are happy to offer glossy paper research posters, and if you try one, you’ll love it too!

Poster Template

We get a lot of calls from people asking if they must use our poster template “as is.” Heck no.

The answer is that we will be happy to print whatever you send. Feel free to change the color scheme, the size of the boxes, anything. Make it your own!

We offer our poster templates to make the design of your research poster easier. It’s better than starting with a blank computer screen, and all the setup stuff is done for you. Copy and paste your content in, shove things around to fit, and you are done. Most people tell us they can put their poster together in an hour or two using our poster template.

While our website has templates for the common poster sizes that we see, we have literally dozens of special size poster templates that we have created over the years. If your conference wants a special size, the chances are that we already have a poster template in the size you need. Give us a call and we’ll email one to you.

Big Type

When you are doing the copy and paste thing from your existing PowerPoint presentation or Word document into our poster template, sometimes the type comes in really large or really small. It looks like you’ve made a mess, but there’s an easy fix.

Look at the size of the type we’ve used in the Introduction part of the template. It’s usually 28 point in research posters that will be printed at 100%, and 14 point on posters that will be printed at 200%. That’s roughly the size you will want your type to be.

When you paste the type in, it will already be selected, as shown at the right. The easy fix is to simply change the type size while the text is still selected. In newer versions of PowerPoint, in the Home tab, you’ll see the font you have chosen and the type size. Change the type size to 14 or 28, and everything should look pretty good.

We suggest that you get everything onto your poster, and then start working to get it aligned and looking good. If you are running out of space, smaller type and smaller line spacing can help. It’s also a good idea not to be cramming too much onto the poster!

Of course, that ignores the fact that if something is too hard to read, people will ignore it. So, the trick is to use a font like Monotype Corsiva that makes your brain work just a little harder.

Here’s a link to the article by Daniel Oppenheimer in the Harvard Business Review. There are a number of caveats the author will give you about this, and some insight into why it works.

One of the reasons I love this business is that I learn something new every day!

Space for an Ipad

When we first looked at this research poster, we thought the author had forgotten a paragraph or inadvertently deleted it. Wrong!

What she was actually doing was leaving a space for them to put an iPad®. They wanted to be able to show a video clip as part of the poster presentation.

Very cool! We think that’s pretty creative, and it’s the first time we’ve seen it done. Certainly not the last.

Naturally, we called to be sure this is what they wanted, since it rings alarm bells around here when we see a blank spot in the poster. Part of our service is to take a look and be sure your research poster looks OK.

If you are leaving a spot for an iPad in your research poster, let us know that you have intentionally left an empty spot by telling us in the special instructions when you order. It will save us both a phone call. We would also suggest that you order a laminated poster, which has more strength and stiffness for supporting the weight of an iPad.

Poster from PowerPoint

So, you are ready to send your poster to be printed and they tell you to send them a pdf. Here’s what they are really saying- “Send me a file that is locked in stone, and anything that it wrong with it is your problem.” Which is true.

At postersession.com we have a different approach. We want the PowerPoint file so we can make a change if there’s a problem. We’ll put a nice crisp logo of your institution in place of the one you copied off the ‘net. We’ll fix type that runs off the page or into the next paragraph.  We’ll change text to white from black when it’s against a dark background so it’s more easily read. All kinds of little tweaks that help.

All in all, we make some change to about 80% of the posters that come to us. We think that gives you a more professional poster, and a better presentation of your research. We know that you are not a graphic designer, you’re a scientist. We are graphic designers, and we give you the benefit of what we know to make your poster better.

Not to mention that PowerPoint 2003 and before don’t make good pdf’s.

Foldable Fabric Poster

We’ve been selling our foldable fabric research posters for over two years now, and we are finding great acceptance of them. Something like a third of all we make are now made of our foldble fabric.

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Standard Poster Tube

Before you jump on the plane, a little planning is required to be sure your research poster arrives with you, and in good condition. Suffice it to say that you can’t just roll your research poster up and put a rubber band around it, and expect it to be nice and fresh for your poster session.

We sell a telescoping plastic carrying tube that will protect your poster during your travel, and for $25 it’s a good investment. You’ll be able to use it many times.

Our prejudice is never to check your research poster with your luggage- too many bad things can happen! You want to carry it on the plane.  Of course, it raises the eyebrows of the security people, looking like a bazooka as it does. But, they see them all the time and are pretty used to them.

The other issue is that the tube counts as a piece of carry-on luggage. We’ve heard so many stories of people having to pay for an extra piece of checked luggage that we often suggest that they try our foldable fabric posters, which can go into your briefcase or carry-on.
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Not So Good Poster

Do it right and your research poster speaks well of you and the research you have done. Do it badly, and it’s like having a stain on your tie. Here’s some things to avoid: