2010 Scientific Poster Workshop

Workshop Notes

Thanks to the wonderful participants, instructors and sponsors, the 2010 Poster Workshop was a big success! If there is enough demand, we hope to hold another similar session next year.

Here are the slides from Raquel & Bill's presentation, the handout they provided, and some useful links which were discussed during the talk and feedback session:

Talk Materials:

Slides (link to pdf)

Handout (link to pdf)

Other Scientific Poster Resources:

Cornell Center for Materials Research poster design talk (link to pdf)

 Resources for learning Adobe Illustrator and InDesign

Lynda.com Extensive Online Training Videos (Pilot program through Duke OIT)

Eric Monson's Visualizaiton Friday Forum talks (links to video are before the abstracts)

  • October 19, 2007 – Scientific Graphics with Adobe Illustrator: Don't be scared -- really, it's fun!

  • February 8, 2008 – Scientific Graphics with Adobe Illustrator: Beyond the basics

  (choose VGA and Video, 768x384, Side by Side format)

Duke OIT Multimedia Project Studios (MPS) have computers with the Adobe Creative Suite and other multimedia software, and are staffed by experts who can help both with the technical and creative sides of your projects – http://oit.duke.edu/mps. They have a live scheduler that people can check if they want to be sure the lab will be staffed when they visit – http://swat.oit.duke.edu/public.

OIT also conducts training sessions – http://oit.duke.edu/training

Color Schemes:

Adobe's kuler site – http://kuler.adobe.com

Cynthia Brewer's Colorbrewer 2.0 – http://colorbrewer2.org

Sponsors:

Duke Visual Studies Initiative

Duke Visualization Technology Group

 



 •• Note: This event has passed, but here is the original information so you can see what it was about. ••

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

1:30 – 5:00 pm

311 North building

* Free event – Pre-registration is required (see below)

(The North building is on Research drive, right next to the LSRC. 311 is the main room on the third floor in the section of the building closest to the LSRC – it is sometimes called the Arcade.)

 

Event Summary

 All of us want our scientific posters to be noticed and to effectively communicate our ideas at the conferences we attend. But, as scientists, we rarely receive any training in graphic design, so even if we notice that some posters are better than others, it is difficult to know where to start in designing a great poster, or what to change to make our posters better. 

Bill Fick and Raquel Salvatella are graphic designers from the Art, Art History and Visual Studies Department who have kindly agreed to hold a workshop on scientific poster design. The first half will be a lecture on graphic design principles geared towards the constraints and goals of scientific posters, including before/after examples using real posters. The second half of the workshop will consist of one-on-one sessions, each about 15 minutes long, where individuals who have submitted posters can receive feedback on their posters to learn what they are doing right, and what they could improve about their designs.

Participants are welcome to attend either or both sessions, and the one-on-one sessions will be open for anyone to listen and learn from the feedback, even if they have not submitted a poster. This should be a great learning opportunity for everyone, and a wonderful way to get your poster in shape before an important conference. So be brave and submit those posters!

 

Schedule

 1:30 – 3:00 pm: Presentation with guidelines for good poster design and before/after examples.

 3:00 – 3:15 pm: Break (with snacks provided)

 3:15 – 5:00 pm: One-on-one feedback sessions.

 

Registration

Pre-registration is required, even for those only planning to attend the lecture portion of the workshop. Please follow this link to register:

REGISTRATION LINK

 

One-on-one Poster Feedback

For people wishing to get one-on-one feedback on their posters, there are a limited number of time slots available, so it is not guaranteed that everyone wishing for feedback will receive it. The organizers will arbitrarily and capriciously decide which posters will be included in the one-on-one sessions, so please don't take it personally if we end up with too many submissions and yours is not chosen. Time slots will be assigned shortly before the event so you will be notified ahead of the event what time your session will be.

 

Poster submissions

(Note: We request PDF format for all poster submissions. This is the format you need for printing anyway, so please convert from the poster creation software's native format into PDF before submission.)
 

To submit your poster for feedback consideration, follow this link to the Duke Webfiles system:

 POSTER DROPBOX

 (Or, go to http://webfiles.duke.edu, log in, and then use the "GoTo..." button to navigate to the poster dropbox path at: /afs/acpub/users/e/m/emonson/public/Posters )

The system only works for people with a valid Duke Unique ID and password. If you are outside of the Duke system and wish to submit a poster, you can email Eric Monson (emonson{at}duke.edu) to make arrangements.

Once you are logged on and can see the Posters folder. Click on the rectangular "Upload" button, which is third from the right on the yellow toolbar. This should bring up a dialog which will allow you to press "Choose File" and browse your local file system for a PDF file of your poster. Then click "Upload File" to begin the transfer process. (This may take a while, depending on your connection speed, and in my experience the "progress bar" might not be very helpful.)