Getting Smart About Posters and Slides

March 23, 2016

Anna McEntire, communications director for the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, shared what makes a gorgeous poster or slide. Anna regularly assists TEDxUSU and presenters with their visual identities, and each year, she helps President Albrecht prepare his presentation for the Higher Education Appropriation Committee. Go through her checklist and see what you can do to become smarter in your slide and poster development.

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Simplify, Signify, Storify

Analytics show that student oral and poster presenters who have well-organized visuals rate higher in other judged rubric categories.

We’ll walk you through the basics to create better presentations and posters as we cover the following categories: Words, Data, Images and Layout.

Layout:

Use simple layouts. Create signposts with colors. Enhance tone with fonts.

Coherence: Organize content into clear sections. Create intuitive flow with modular layouts.

Efficiency: Get rid of unnecessary elements (abstract, date footer, questions). Create ample white space and margins.

Interest: Create a clear size/heading hierarchy. Add related design elements.

Style: Ditch confusing background images/gradients/watermarks. Place and use logos/wordmarks appropriately.

Content:

Delete words. Organize, create points of entry. Ditch the jargon. Wow with your words.

Coherence: Ensure you address all required sections. Proofread all your text!!

Efficiency: Reduce text length and complexity as much as possible. Utilize bullets and diagrams to show relationships.

Interest: Use simple, interesting and descriptive titles and subheads. Use first-person voice and active verbs.

Style: Carefully select and use 2-3 fonts and 2-3 colors. Format text to left justified, ample leading and paragraph spacing.

Data:

Use only necessary information. Choose the right format and unify style. Explain your results.

Coherence: Make sure graphs and figures are readable. Double check for needed units of measurement, categories, etc.

Efficiency: Utilize the right type of graph for the data. Simplify by deleting extra information or using progressive disclosure.

Interest: Highlight relevant data or important trends in the graph. Explain meaning of data (trends, outliers, etc.).

Style: Utilize theme colors and fonts for your graphs and figures. Optimize graphs by remaking in custom template format.

Imagery:

Create focal points. Use images to represent ideas. Include high quality imagery.

Coherence: Make sure images are high quality/resolution. Pay special attention to research pictures.

Efficiency: Choose images that are clearly topical. Use and simplify diagrams.

Interest: Enlarge images to serve as focal points. Provide context/sources with captions.

Style: Utilize alternate/better image sources. Get rid of images with white backgrounds/layering.