Better Posters

Book excerpt: Better posters mean better research. Distilling over a decade of experience from the popular Better Posters blog, Zen Faulkes will help you create a clear and informative conference poster that delivers maximum impact. Academics have used posters to share research for more than five decades, and tens of thousands of posters are presented at conferences every year. Despite the popularity of the format, no in-depth guide has been available on how to create and deliver compelling conference posters. From over-long titles, tiny text and swarms of logos, to bad font choices, chaotic colour schemes and blurry images – it’s easy to leave viewers confused about your poster’s message. The solution is Better Posters: a comprehensive guide to everything you need to know – from writing a title and submitting an abstract, to designing the poster and finally presenting it in the poster session. Your conference poster will be one of your first research outputs, and the poster session is your first introduction to a professional community. Making a great poster develops the skills to create publications, reports, outreach and teaching materials throughout your career. This book also has material for conference organizers on how to make a better poster session for their attendees.