Poster structure
When it comes time to make a poster, the paper must already be there. In fact, it is best to make a PPT first, because the poster area is limited and the information that can be expressed is limited, so it must be the most important content. If you do a good PPT first, it is equivalent to a refinement, and it is more convenient to make.
The content of the poster is generally close to the outline of the thesis, usually the following content:
- Title
- author information
- Abstract
- Introduction (Introduction/Background)
- Problems (Problems)
- Purpose (Objectives) or hypothesis (Hypothesis)
- Materials and Methods (Materials and Methods)
- Result
- Discussion (Discussion)
- Conclusion/Summary
- Inference (Implication)
- Acknowledgement
- Future Works
- References (References)
When making specific productions, you can make a choice based on the papers, conferences, participants, etc. and the poster size allowed by the forum, but the ones marked in bold generally must be included.
Production software
In essence, an academic poster is a poster, so any professional art design software is applicable, such as PS, AI, etc. However, for many engineering students, they may not have mastered these softwares. Whether it is worth learning AI just to make a poster depends on your own decision. But I think the tools are all auxiliary, as long as you use them well, the PPT tool is completely sufficient. Of course, the processing of some pictures can be assisted by other professional software.
After starting work, open PPT→Design→Slide size→change height and width, and choose a size according to the requirements of the forum or your own design plan. The rest of the work is the specific production, it is nothing more than using the text box, filling color, border color and other operation steps, step by step.
Basic principles that should be followed
Although the production process is not responsible, it is not easy to be beautiful. To summarize, the following principles are all you should follow.
- overall arrangement
- Regardless of the layout, the subject must be highlighted. The headline must be clearly visible from 3m away and attract readers' attention. If it cannot attract people to watch, how much content you write is meaningless;
- For the horizontal layout, it can be divided into 3~4 columns, and the vertical layout is generally divided into 2 columns;
- There must be a gap between the columns to make a clear distinction;
- Leave blanks around the poster to prevent inaccurate printing;
- Each content should be divided into modules, with blank spaces between;
- The content is not easy to divide too many levels, expressing from left to right and top to bottom.
2. Color usage
- The choice of basic color should match the characteristics of your thesis and the field, such as aviation. It is appropriate to choose a dark blue as the background color.
- The background color is generally white or darker, and the notes are suitable for academic style.
- You can learn from the color scheme provided by PPT. In any case, the colors of the boxes and icons should be coordinated with the overall background color.
- In addition to pictures, use no more than 3 colors.
- Especially do not use colors close to the background color, because if the print quality is not good, the final effect will be poor.
3. Font usage
- All text should be bold, otherwise it is not clear when printed!
- The positive character number is at least 24, preferably 28~30;
- The subtitle is bigger, or distinguished by color;
- The main title is 72~90, even larger.
4. Chart usage
- Use pictures as much as possible. People are visual animals. Pictures are the most attractive and can convey the largest amount of information;
- It’s better to use more than 40% of pictures, and the text content should match and coordinate with each other;
- The picture quality should be high, at least 200dpi, otherwise the print out is horrible!
- The charts should be numbered sequentially and a caption must be added, otherwise if you are not nearby, others will not be able to understand it.
Other special considerations
- Don't trust your eyes, use the alignment tools provided by the software, otherwise you will find that you need to do it again when it is printed out;
- Pay attention to details, first export to PDF or image format after the production is completed, and check it carefully after zooming in on the large display. You can also ask a friend to help check it. Sometimes you can't see it by yourself but others can see it at a glance;
- In addition to partial details, pay attention to whether the chart numbers in the entire poster are correct and whether the alignment is beautiful;
- You can put the address of the paper on the poster with a QR code. Many browsers have this function, or you can use special tools;
- You can put your own photos for publicity, and you can leave contact information below the photos or at the bottom of the poster;
- Be careful to avoid large sections of pure text, no one wants to look at posters like this.
Print production
When printing, you can first convert the source file to PDF or JPEG format. Note that it must be at least 300dpi to ensure the printing effect. If the forum is not to post posters, but to use a display stand in a row, it must be made of a hard plastic shell so that it can be supported on the stand.
Reference: [Knowledge]( https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/37398032 )
[Knowing]( https://www.zhihu.com/question/22014621 )
[Knowledge]( https://www.zhihu.com/question/36640882 )