Lab posters are not conference posters

When I wander through department hallways and professor offices, I often see posters like this, from Rottner and colleagues (2017; tweeted by journal here). Click to enlarge!

These sort of posters often feature cellular processes or biochemical pathways. They are often professionally done, attractive, and valuable teaching tools. But they are not good examples that conference poster makers should be trying to imitate.

A poster like this is meant for experts, so presumes a high level of knowledge. It is intended to be something you can look at for days, weeks, months, sometimes even years. They can show lots of fiddly little details that you can discover over that long period of time.

In a conference poster session, you have a few minutes for someone to absorb the work, not months. You can’t stuff in the same level of detail in conference poster that you can in a lab poster.

Hat tip to Prachee Avasthi.

Reference

Rottner K, Faix J, Bogdan S, Linder S, Kerkhoff E. 2017. Actin assembly mechanisms at a glance. Journal of Cell Science 130: 3427-3435. https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.206433