Natural Systems and Processes Poster

"An American monkey, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men"

- Charles Darwin

Today's post is going to be pretty brief compared to my previous posts. As it's going to be about a piece of work I recently made, I thought I would use one of my favorite Charlie D quotes for the header, hence why it's not even slightly related to the content! 

Last Monday, a poster that I created about part of my research in Madagascar was displayed at the Natural Systems and Processes Poster Presentation in Wills Hall - the main hall of the University of Bristol. I was supposed to stand by my poster for at least half an hour during the three hour session but due to an over running interview (for a job I did not get!), I was late and they were packing up by the time I got there. I'd like to think that's why I didn't win any of the prizes!

Academic scientists, and biologists in particular, are really hot on posters. I think the thought process is something along the lines of; 

"If we put it on a poster, automatically it becomes accessible and therefore interesting to everyone"

This should include other people outside of their field or subject and even members of the general public with no academic background whatsoever. Some of the posters are brilliant and engaging and I genuinely think they would interest someone who had never heard about, for example, the speciation of a particular type of stick insect (a poster I had to make in the third year of my BSc). The majority, though, are not so good. I often feel like an academic has been told to make a poster, and just shoved as much of the paper they hope to get published onto an A0 piece of paper, with maybe a generic picture here and a fancy but confusing table there.

So I went about trying to make a poster that at a glance, did not look like a bit of academic research. Admittedly, my first attempt was not great. When I asked what Sam meant when he was looking the poster over for me, a fellow post-graduate student said "He thinks it looks unproffessional". A couple of hours, and £30 later, I had to agree with him - hence why I had to pay for the poster to be printed a second time! However, I felt that the final out come... 

...was both professional and might be attractive to non-scientists or academics. To see a larger version of the poster, which you can actually read, go to:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k54glbmgaup1dvf/FINAL%20CORRECTED%20VERSION%20Eleanor%20Frew%20NSPPS.pdf

The layout was developed using a program called Comic Life, a program generally used to make digital comics (unsurprisingly). Normally, academics use Adobe Illustrator or Microsoft Powerpoint, or one of the programs better known for making digital visual media, but I saw Comic Life suggested on a blog about making good posters (for anyone interested in tips on making informative, visually pleasing posters, the address is http://betterposters.blogspot.co.uk/ ), and decided to go for it. I'm really pleased that I did, and the only problem I have left, is where to put the A0 (thats 84.1 x 118.9 cm) poster that resulted from it!!!

Ellie x