Introduction toPoster Design

Melanie St. JamesManager, Design and Usability Services

UIT ESTS, Tufts Universitymelanie.stjames@tufts.edu

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mswanson/archive/2007/05/06/bad-design-by-example.aspx

•Readability improves:•comprehension•retention•reading speed•reading persistence

Goal: Maximize Readability

Capture your audience!

2000 Presidential Elections Florida Ballot

VISUAL HIEARCHY:

Examples from Robin Williams’ Design Workshop

Examples from Robin Williams’ Design Workshop

Examples from Robin Williams’ Design Workshop

Your design tools:

•Typography•Layout•Color•Images

Design concepts

•Alignment•Grouping•Contrast

Examples from Robin Williams’ Design Workshop

My GIS Poster

A quick design workshop

My GIS PosterA quick design workshop

My GIS PosterA quick design workshop

Corporate Logos Redesignhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/weekinreview/31marsh.html

•Times New Roman ArialT T

Serif vs. Sans Serif

Arial / Helvetica

Print fonts

Times New Roman

Sans Serif

Serif

Web fonts

VerdanaTrebuchetGeorgia

City names: Chicago, Geneva…

•Comic Sans…

http://www.typebrewer.org

http://www.typebrewer.org

Visual Hierarchy

•The bold, the underlined and the italicized

Readability: Column Width

•The “alphabet-and-a-half ” line length rule: •the ideal line length at 39 characters •regardless of type size.

Left align Justified

aaFont size

COLORAbout...

Tufts Visual Identity: http://publications.tufts.edu/visualidentity

http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html

Contrasting hues with a similar value

Contrasting hues with different values

Images

Resolution:Caution:

Format:

Working with Images

150 or 300 dpiweb images are 72 dpiSnagIt - software to increase image resolution

TIFF (can yield large files) GIF, PNG (solid colors, text) JPG (photos)

http://creativecommons.org/image/

Working with images in a page layout software:

What you see is NOT what you get

Layout

12 columns

Design Process:

• Be in charge of your design decisions:

• color palette, fonts

• Identify most important elements & highlight them

• Take away anything that doesn’t directly support your MAIN IDEA

• Squint at your poster: what do you see?

?Which software to use

•MS PowerPoint•Adobe InDesign•MS Publisher

Melanie St. JamesManager, Design and Usability Services

UIT ESTS, Tufts Universitymelanie.stjames@tufts.edu

Good luck and have fun with your posters!