Poster ideas: how to present material that is VISUAL?
What I am looking for in a poster:
A good poster will have:
A point, a purpose, a takeaway, a thesis, something to
teach the class
this is a very important element in terms of grading: all
else results from this.
if you are making a poster about
something that we have not covered in class (and most all
of you are doing that): the point should be
something that relates the new work to what we have read,
makes it attractive to read the new work, or maybe makes us
see what we read in a different light
A title that conveys the "takeaway," the "message,"
the "point" of the poster, what a viewer will get out of it.
Think of this as the one-liner on the list of posters that
gets put into the program at a conference: it should make
someone want to go take a look.
The title and your name MUST BE very clear on the back of
the poster. If you want to, you can put it on the
presentation side of the poster too, but that is not
necessary.
Related to that, the poster itself should deliver on
its title: the poster should fulfill its title's promise.
you can have a clever catchy title, but be sure to have a
subtitle that says what the poster does
Sensible structure: just as you don't put sentences,
words, paragraphs in random order, so things on your poster
should be organized and not just in random order.
there must be a clear reason why things are arranged as
they are on the poster.
but it's not enough to have a structure (see next item)
Lots of help for the viewer to understand that structure:
unlike a paper, where the reader is meant to read from the
first word to the next to the next to the next... to the
last, in a linear way, a viewer can jump around on a poster.
YOU have to help your viewer by using arrows, numbers,
colors. If it is unusual and eye-catching, all the better.
Economy: make each word, each line, each picture,
each color count
you have to "boil down" your ideas into quick,
eye-catching, but still fully explanatory and fully
intellectual and fully informative VISUAL presentation.
don't just fill up every square inch and call it done:
blank space can be very important visually: and there is a
visual counterpart to "filler" and "fluff"
but be careful: see the next point
Detail and carefulness
Although a poster, like a powerpoint, is "boiled down,"
"spare," "concise" and not just a welter of detail,
nonetheless, unlike a powerpoint, it must have ample detail
and the right detail
How to incorporate that? Be judicious and very careful and
accurate.
This is perhaps the hardest part to get right if you do
everything else well. It's a balancing act.
Personality
Your poster should have a style, pizzazz, a spark,
something that says "I'm proud of what I am" "Look at me" "I
won't disappoint you!!"
But that comes with a risk: the "personality" should be
relevant to the material (i.e. not just purple glitter with
no reason) and it should be backed up with substance to
match, and it shouldn't be just random: it should serve the
content.
I will spend no more than 5 minutes per poster to form a
preliminary idea. If you want to ask someone to "test" or
"proofread" or "rehearse" your poster, think of it that way. If
you have more than 5 minutes of reading material to get through
the bulk of your poster, it's too much. If it takes 10 minutes
for a friend to get through the whole thing, it's too much.
On the other hand, the counterpart to that is that if it
takes 5 minutes to get through it, but it doesn't really say
much, that's a big problem too.
After looking at a poster for 5 minutes at most, I want to
be able to say:
I understand easily and well exactly what the poster is
trying to tell me, because it was made easy for me to do so: I
know what it is trying to teach me.
AND it's an important message, one that makes a difference
to how I see the material in the class, one that makes me want
to pursue the topic more or shows me something interesting and
new.
I agree with the creator: what the poster is trying to tell
me is true, because the creator showed me that it is true via
good evidence.
This poster took good advantage of being visual rather than
verbal: visual presentation works well for what the poster is
trying to say.
The creator really incorporated a lot of material from our
readings and learning in this class. AND IT IS SPECIFIC
(quotations, line numbers, details, not just vague things)
Come to think of it, those 5 bullet points are what I
will ask myself when grading, a sort of rubric
for grading.
The following is what I have come up with in terms of elements you
can exploit to convey ideas visually. IT IS VERY SKETCHY AND IS
MEANT TO GET YOUR NEURONS FIRING SO THAT YOU CAN CARRY IT FURTHER
color?
make color significant somehow? be careful, because no one
can read some combinations, such as yellow
font or light grey or green on
green.
make color of background in particular areas significant?
make color of other elements significant?
use color to connect things?
...
space
center versus edge of poster can be significant: central
focus versus peripheral elements, main topic versus related
topics, etc.
amount of space given to something can suggest its
importance
one side versus the other side: comparisons, contrasts,
versions
venn diagrams
left to right, top to bottom is often how people read things
maybe put a 'start here' on the poster?
...
overlays
simply hinge-ing/folding a piece of paper with one
image/word/symbol on top of another that the viewer has to
reach out and reveal suggests a connection
perhaps surface versus underlying significance
hidden connections?
time: later things on top or bottom?
detail: big picture on top, then open it to reveal detail?
maybe transparency overlays that can be removed to show how
something builds gradually?
popup elements
requires some craftiness, but it's possible
a poster with a fold can have "shelves" built into it..
shapes or other symbols
bullet-points that have different shapes are visual cues
different themes/ideas can be attached to them
a plus + sign or an equals = sign or an -> arrow or
whatever can be used to great effect to show the nature of a
connection between elements >>> think flowcharts!!
putting an outline/frame around something can separate it off
and highlight it in various ways
distortion of images:
distortion of an image can suggest relative importance of
the parts that are made huge/small or otherwise suggest an
interpretation
maps
automatically visual
directions
"START HERE" maybe?
or have it read from something focal in the center outward
or maybe from left to right, top to bottom like a printed
page
triptych? diptych?
take one posterboard, or two, or three, and put them up at
an angle to each other, or fold one into two halves or three
parts. It will stand up then, which is very nice.
could imply that the contents are reflection of one thing
by another or two sides of one phenomenon or comparison or
contrast or phenomenon
timelines
also always already visual
graphs/charts
also inherently visual, but can be dull if not done right.
you could even go 3-d: have to be crafty with glue and stuff,
but it could be interesting: boxes? planes that are
perpendicular to the poster? holes in poster? maybe just pad
something from behind with a layer or two of cardboard so it
literally stands out from the plane of the poster?
size
generally, something LARGE implies important, central,
focus, whereas something small implies
detail
style
different styles offont
could be interesting and put to
work as a way to suggest various things.
Background:
different backgrounds for different spaces? perhaps shapes
that are outlined but overlap on different colored backgrounds
to show two different things with the same image?
texture?
flashy prismatic paper could attract attention to something,
for instance
tables are great for quick visual orientation:
put content here!
corresponding content here
other content here
and here
In other words, every element that you see can be manipulated
and possibly made to create meaning or logic or connections.
YOU MAY NEED TO INCLUDE A KEY for viewers to understand these
things