MCHC Poster Session Guidelines

Guidelines for Preparing a Conference Poster*

2005 Conference of the Maryland Collegiate Honors Council

University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD  -- Friday, March 4, 2005

All undergraduates currently enrolled at Maryland colleges and universities (including both 2-year and 4-year institutions) are invited to bring a poster for presentation at the conference.

  1. Suggested poster size is approximately 30 inches wide x  40 inches high.  The maximum poster size allowed is 48 inches wide x  48 inches high.  You must bring adequate stiff backing for the poster to rest well on an easel if necessary. 
  2. If you are traveling by plane, you may wish to produce the poster parts before you come and assemble the poster at the conference. Standard poster board, adhesives, and markers will be available.
  3. Tentative plans are that your poster will be on display for an afternoon and a morning session. You will need to have your poster set up before the start of each session. Allow yourself plenty of time for the setup, so that you can relax and enjoy the presentation.
  4. Your poster represents you, your school, and the MCHC. Take great care to plan and organize it well. Make sure it communicates the intended information in an interesting, visual manner. Ask your honors director or research advisor to proof your work and get feedback about your poster from a variety of people.
  5. Keep it simple and brief. A poster is not a place for you to tack up your entire paper for people to read. Instead, think of a poster as a series of highly efficient, organized “panels” upon which appear synopses of the relevant information you want to convey — just enough to get your point across.
  6. Organize your poster materials using headings, such as “Introduction”, “The Research Question”, “The Methodology”, and “Findings”. These headings will help establish a logical flow to your poster.
  7. Use large enough fonts so people will not have to squint to read the material. For headings, use at least a 48-point font. For text, use nothing less than 18-point.
  8. Make your poster visually appealing. Have fun. Be creative. Incorporate color. Use photographs, graphs, charts, maps, and the like. Simplify charts and figures to include only relevant information. Be attentive to the layout and placement of your materials.
  9. Place the title of your work in a prominent position on your poster. Include your name, your school, and the name(s) of your faculty advisor(s). You may wish to attach a pad of paper to your poster for visitors who have questions or would like more information about your research.
  10. Do not plan on using any audio-visual equipment. None will be available, and if you bring your own, it will not be secure.

Tips to Enhance Your Poster Session

Time and Effort

The poster session is NOT an easy way out of giving a speech.  Poster sessions require ten times the amount of work imagined.  Once the research for a speech is completed, you must still print out, mount, and display the work for a poster session.

Inspiration

Where the competition is keen, you must pay attention to all aspects of your presentation.  If your work is intelligent, but you are unable to communicate that, it will be ignored.  Communication is the key to why there is graphic art.

Intent

Keep it simple.  Offer just enough to have them clamoring for more.  Don’t overwhelm with too much information.

Art in the Science of Color

Use complementary colors, not matching colors.  Cool colors recede and are known as calming.  Warm colors advance and are known as aggressive.

Composition or Arrangement

  • “Everything that is beautiful is orderly, and there can be no order unless things are in their right arrangement to each other.” (Robert Henri, art teacher/painter, 1020s)
  • Compose your work to best illustrate the idea you wish to convey.  The eye should be led to the central theme.
  • Try to see both the positive and negative spaces of your layout.  Each carries similar importance.
  • Symmetry is a good rule: however, in art, rules are made to be broken.  Knowledge of the rules is necessary in order to successfully break them.
  • Visual illustrations: Allow a larger margin at the bottom.
  • Use the appropriate media for the message at hand.  Example: Don’t use Spanish Gothic Calligraphy for a high-tech product.
  • Limit the typefaces used in a poster session.  The general rule is not more than three.

Tricks of the Trade

Materials required:

  • Spraymount or photomount – rubber cement or glue stick will curl the paper and release the hold if you change climates or humidity.  Use adequate ventilation for any of these products.
  • Knife and cutting surface
  • Matboard
  • Soft (HB, 2B) pencil and kneaded eraser
  • Metal straightedge
  • Rubber cement pickup
  • T-square or parallel rule
  • Burnisher and cover sheet
  • Clear spray finish: Blair Spray-Fix
  • Color Xeroxes, and halftones or continuous-tone photographs

Poster Data

  • Color Xeroxes can be made from slides or prints and are much less expensive than photographs
  • Graphs, charts, and maps
  • Title, author(s), faculty adviser, university affiliation
  • Spec. sheet for size of allotted space, minimum type size, etc.

Mistakes Made Most Often

Haste, poor color choices, excessive verbosity, poor arrangement/layout

Here is the call for poster presentations: MCHC Poster Session Information

* Adapted from NCHC’s poster guidelines

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