Critique: Let’s compare

Today’s contribution comes from Richard McGee. Click to enlarge!

Before I get to the critique, Richard has a word of warning for us. Here he is presenting his poster. See any differences in the photo below compared to what is above on your screen?

For me, the right triangle and the bottom triangle are clearly different in the top image, but almost the same blue in the bottom one. Richard writes:

The printer I went to couldn’t print it to the size I wanted. It ended up being smaller than anticipated. Also, the colours looked different on printing than I had expected, based on the computer screen and my trial run on A4 paper.

This is why professional artists get proofs from the printer before going into production. Both the printer and artist should be sure that reproduction is as expected. Unfortunately, academics sometimes don’t have the time or money to go through a proofing stage.

This also means that the text, which is mostly readable, in the top version gets lost in the printed version. The darker colours are making it harder to pick out the black letters. This is a slight problem in the top version, particular at the bottom, but looks not so great in the printed version.

Richard continues:

I had a specific goal in creating my poster in having it stand out as a bit different and generating interest, so more like an advertisement rather than providing a synopsis of a paper.

I have noticed that students beginning a project give among the best talks and posters, because they are not burdened down by data. This is true of this poster, too.

Not having to fit in a lot of text let Richard to use a big, bold colour patches of colour. Because they are all in the same region of the spectrum, down in the blues and greens, the colours aren’t clashing and being an eyesore, which is always a risk with big blocks of colour.

And I like that those big bold blocks of colour are in triangles! The text blocks could have easily been three rectangles, but the triangles make this so much more distinct. It’s a good example of harnessing the power of diagonals, which Ellen Lupton talks about in her book How Posters Work.

I like the use of the “1, 2, 3” in the central circle to indicate the slightly non-standard reading order. If you’re going to use a slightly non-standard reading order, it’s only polite to guide the readers through it. I don’t think anyone would be confused by the order here.

It is a shame that the printer did not quite come through for Richard.