Sweating the small stuff

A lot of the stuff I discuss on this blog is a little anal retentive, I admit. Fiddly little alignments, spacing, matching up typefaces, more alignment, more futzing with spacing... Are those last few changes it worth it?

Seth Godin explains why it pays to sweat those last few details.

In most fields, there's an awful lot of work put into the last ten percent of quality. ...

Laying out the design of a page or a flyer so it looks like a pro did it takes about ten times as much work as merely using the template Microsoft builds in for free, and the message is almost the same...

Except it’s not. Of course not. The message is not the same.

The last ten percent is the signal we look for, the way we communicate care and expertise and professionalism.

This is why I write about using Helvetica instead of Arial, and anything instead of PowerPoint.

Poster versus talk, May 2010 edition

At the Uncertain Principles blog, Chad Orzel takes a survey on whether people would rather present a poster versus give a talk. There’s a lively comment thread that might explain some of the reasons for the three to one lead one format has over the other. (No, I’m not telling you which one!)

Related posts

Poster or talk?
Should your first presentation be a poster?

Conversation piece

If you walked into a room with that table, you’d have something to talk about, wouldn’t you? It would be almost impossible not to ask what the heck it was doing in that living room, where it was bought, and for goodness’s sake, why?

It is a remarkable object, in the sense that Seth Godin uses the term (emphasis added):

As I travel around spreading the word of the Purple Cow, a lot of people appear confused about just what “remarkable” means. It’s not elitist. It’s not weird. It’s not cheap or expensive or big or small. It’s any or all of these things... it’s just something worth talking about.

A conference poster should be a remarkable object. The job of a poster is to start conversations.

To put it another way, a poster is a social object. People are often more comfortable talking about some third object than they are either talking about themselves, or their conversational partner. After all, talking about yourself, or the person you’re talking to, is not an easy thing to do: it requires some trust.

What starts conversations? Above all else, you need something recognizable if you want to start a conversation. If there is nothing a novice can comprehend at a glance, you’re not going to have conversations.

But you have an even better chance of starting conversations if that entry point is remarkable. That remarkable thing can be an amazing fact. It can be a tantalizing question. Or, like the table above, it just might be unusual, edgy, or unexpected.

Related links

Entry points: Five ways to make your poster more inviting

Seth’s Blog: How to be remarkable

Nina Simon’s Museum 2.0 blog: Exhibits and artefacts as social objects.

Furniture from here. Ad from here.

So you need a typeface?

The “So you need a typeface?” flowchart is taken from here from designer Julian Hansen. Click to enlarge.

It’s a fun graphic, but alas! There is no “research poster” starting point. Either “infographic” or “newspaper” might be good starting points if you want to try it for your poster.

P.S. – If in doubt, use Helvetica. And not that Arial knock-off, either; Helvetica.

Maestros wanted

I’m looking for inspiration.

I’m looking for talent and craftsmanship.

I’m looking for people whose posters consistently stand out.

People who give good consistently talks can become well-known for doing so. People who make consistently good posters... I can’t think of a single one.

Beautiful slide decks even have their own archives. For instance, I recently discovered Note & Point, a self-described collection of slideware slides “looking that much better.” I’m sure there are many others.

But there isn’t anywhere you can go for a similar gallery of really knockout conference posters. You can find good posters at ePosters and the Pimp my Posters Flickr group, but those have different mandates, really. The former is a general archive, the latter a testing ground.

That’s why I would like your help. If you know a colleague who is great at making posters, please let me know. If you find a single poster somewhere that is just a masterpiece, send me the link. I’d like to start featuring their work, finding out what they do to make great posters, and sharing that with you.

Wearing a black tuxedo is admired, but in no way required.

Survey: What do you use?

This week marks the last week of classes for many academics. This means that conference season will soon go into full swing. Many posters will be designed, printed, and presented in the next few months.

To better understand the needs of poster makers, I have started a poll that will run through summer. You can see the poll over on the right side of the screen. The question is simple: What software do you prefer to use to make conference posters?

Please take a second to vote – assuming, of course, that you actually make posters! (I can’t image why you’re reading if you don’t, but what you do on your side of the phosphor dots is your business.)

Additional: If your preferred tool isn’t listed, please vote “Something else” and leave a note in the comments, or email me.

Update: The poll is now closed, and the results are here

Photo by secretlondon123 on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Poster real estate

Not all the “real estate” on your poster has equal value.

The upper left hand corner of your poster, just below the title, is Boardwalk. The lower left hand corner is Mediterranean Avenue.

The vertical dimension is the most important consideration in determining the prime real estate on your poster. That key space on the poster is a band from about five to five and a half feet off the ground. That is normally considered to be eye level for a large number of people. Your poster may not hit this exactly, because of the particular mounting scheme at your conference.

Assuming you put your title at the top, and that your poster has a standard horizontal layout, this means that the most valuable space on your poster is from the top of each column, to about a third to a halfway down the column.

Eye level is the place where people standing and walking by will look the most, so you want to put your best material there. If you have a three column grid, for instance:

• Top left: Put a compelling question that your research asks.
• Top center: Put your key results.
• Top right: Put the take home message.

The title of a poster is usually a bit above eye level. This is great for people walking by, because they will be able to read your title even if you have a crowd around your poster that are listening to your presentation in rapt attention. But the very top of your poster is usually a little too high for someone actually reading the poster. Your title works like the highway sign for a gas station of fast food restaurant: you want someone to be able to spot if from a distance, but don’t expect them to look at it once they get there.

The bottom of the poster, below eye level, is the least valuable region of the poster. People will tend to overlook material there, unless you draw it to their attention. And everything there will be harder to read, because it’s farther away from the eye.

Those regions are good for the details that aficionados and experts might insist on seeing, but that aren’t critical to the story you’re telling. Again, assuming a three column layout, it might look something like:

• Bottom left: Detailed methods.
• Bottom center: Supporting results.
• Bottom right: Acknowledgments to funding agencies and references.

The horizontal position of material on the poster, which not as critical as the vertical, still comes into play. The left side is more valuable than the middle or the right side, because that is where people automatically look when they start glancing over your poster.

So in that upper left side, you want to have an entry point that is attractive, punchy, concise; a conversation starter that draws someone in.

That lower right corner, the lowest value real estate, is a natural place for “fine print” that is necessary, but that people rarely read.

Related posts

Entry points: Five ways to make your posters more inviting