102 Roudebush Hall • Phone: 513-529-3600• Fax: 513-529-3762

Poster Hints for Miami Undergraduate Research Forum

boy with poster Poster sessions allow an audience of individuals to review many presentations quickly, while at the same time providing the opportunity for an individual viewer to talk with selected authors whose projects are of particular interest. Poster materials should provide an introduction - an entry point to further discussion of the presenting author’s work and project results.
Your poster presentation event will provide bulletin boards with a cork surface on which you will mount your materials with tacks or push pins that you should bring with you for this purpose.(Architectural push pins are not permitted). Remember to lay out your poster carefully beforehand to assure that it will fit within the allotted space (42" high x 66" wide).

Getting your Poster Printed at the Miami Print Center
Location: Miamii Print Center in Gaskill Hall.
Cost: $ 4 per square foot as of March 2011
Production Time: 2-3 days are required to print your poster.
File type to submit: pdf
Submit your poster as soon as possible to ensure there is time to print everyone’s presentation.

Suggested layout software is PowerPoint, InDesign, or Photoshop. The file does not have to be designed at 100% of the print size, it is recommended to design the layout at 25-50% (we can enlarge up to 400% when printing). If you use Microsoft Powerpoint, you will need to export your file to a pdf file to get it printed. Orders can be submitted by going to the Miami print center or via email to printcenter@muohio.edu. Students should provide their name, phone number, size of presentation board, and date & time the poster is required. “ASAP” is not a sufficient response. Files are preferred in PDF format.
Microsoft Publisher is not recommended software, but if that is the only resort, the board must be designed at a quarter size or it will not print as one page. Images should be a minimum of 200 dpi, and images pulled directly off of internet sites are not “print quality” and will not reproduce well. Images and graphics should be downloaded before being placed in the document. Documents created in Adobe InDesign must be converted to PDF on the computer it was created on, or the file must be “packaged” so that the student has all fonts and links when they come to the print center to coordinate printing (otherwise the poster will not print correctly). Documents created in Adobe Illustrator must be converted to outlines and the layers must be flattened prior to saving in PDF format. Documents created in Photoshop must have the layers flattened prior to saving in PDF format.

Other hints:
To save on printing costs and ease in transport and mounting, titles, text and figures are often printed onto regular paper and then glued or taped to individual pieces of backing materials, such as colored “poster board”. Cut slightly larger than your printed pages, such backing materials also provide a colorful “frame” for your work.

Be concise. Provide the essence of your project, enough to whet someone’s appetite for more. Be there with your poster at your scheduled presentation time to answer any questions.
Use figures and graphics where possible. Remember, a picture is worth....
Use large type. The text and figure labels on a poster should be readable from a distance of three to six feet. Title and headings should be large to draw a viewer’s attention to the topic of your poster.
Arrange text and graphics in a logical order. It may helpful to number the sequence of various poster sections with 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. as an aid to the reader.
Be creative. Strive to make the viewer’s experience in reading your poster both intellectually and esthetically satisfying.

The following is an example of a poster format commonly seen at professional meetings (Remember, the bulletin board size is 42” x 66”):

Example diagram of a poster layout