No tacks

When I was a kid, I pretty much wrecked the paint in my room putting up Star Wars and spaceship posters. I used loops of masking tape to put up my posters, which were okay until you tried to take them down. Though I tried to be careful, more often than not, some of the paint (green) would come away with the tape.

I’m reminded of this because the conference that I’m attending this week sent me a rather stern email a few weeks back concerning my poster:

Fixing methods: Thumb nails are not allowed. Use adhesive materials

Fortunately, adhesive technology has come a long way since 1977. I particularly like the poster strips made by 3M, because they are made to be removed. They’re a soft, slightly spongy material with adhesives on both sides. The tab at the bottom has no adhesive, though, giving you a spot to grab it and slowly pull down. Because the material stretches, it tends not to shear and rip the paint.

I’ve used them quite a bit, and haven’t done much damage to the paint outside my office yet. I find them in the hardware and home improvement section of my local Wal-mart.

There’s also Velcro adhesive pads, but these only seem with it if you’re cycling through several posters on the same spot, which is not the normal conference situation.

Scotch make various kinds of double-sided mounting tape. These seem intended to be more or less permanent, though. I haven’t tried them yet, but they would seem to suffer from the same problem as the old loops of masking tape.

The conference organizers also said:

Poster material: Plastic, paper.  Fabric is not allowed.

I’m risking it anyway.(Yes, that actually is the poster I made for the conference this week.) Note to conference organizers: If you want your attendees to make their poster a certain way, tell them way in advance. Like, when you start registration.