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Kamis, 22 Januari 2015

Latest modern science | Critique: City bird, country bird - Si Bejo Science

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Today�s poster comes from Sam Hardman on Twitter, and is used with his permission. You can click to enlarge!


This poster pulls off a few things that could have been disasters, but work here because there is not a lot of stuff. Normally, I advocate either columns, or rows, but this one kind of has a mix, as shown by the reading order:


You read down, then across, down, then down and across, and so on. But because this poster is four simple quadrants, without a huge amount of text, you can grasp the order quickly.

The clear headlines, �The experiment� and �The results� effectively structure the poster into top and bottom halves, then the columns do the rest. I wondered if the lines were all the necessary, so I tried removing them:



The poster works without the horizontal lines on the bottom �Results� section. This reinforces my theory that generous white space is almost always better than black lines in creating sections on a poster.

The top section isn�t quite as clearly defined, because the author�s name and institution are a bit too prominent. They need more �down pop.� De-emphasizing those text sections does two things. First, they don�t compete with the title. Second, they create breathing room between the title and �The Experiment� section heading, which would more clearly delineate the top half of the poster.

 
Apart from some of these minor spacing details, this is a clean design that is very approachable and attractive.

Kamis, 08 Januari 2015

Latest modern science | Critique: Plague - Si Bejo Science

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Alison Atkin has an interesting and award-winning poster here. Click to enlarge!


The first thing that stands out about this poster is that it is hand drawn. Wow. I�ve only had, I think, one other completely hand-made poster on the blog before. That was done by someone with fine art training, but this is different. It�s lo fi, and personal.

What I love even more about this poster is how it invites you in to come and play...



For more examples of �interactive� (that is, pop-up) panels, make sure to read the full blog post.

It�s a little difficult to judge the poster in its entirety here, because Alison notes the image was is a composite. Assuming that this is reasonably true to the original, the only thing I would have liked to have seen would be stronger visual cues to read across in rows, not down in columns. This could be done by making the horizontal gaps a bit wider than the vertical ones, or by placing the test very consistently at the top. The critical first two panels put the text at the top, which set the pace for the rest of the poster.

I love this poster. Something like this would stand out at any conference for the amount of work it represents, its uniqueness, and its charm.

Hat tip to, er, Alison Atkin and Wellcome Trust for this Storify on accessible scientific writing.

Related posts

Combining art and science: Karmella Haynes interview

Kamis, 18 Desember 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: The golden blogosphere - Si Bejo Science

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This poster comes from Joel Topf. Click to enlarge!


The idea of the layout is good. Having the text all concentrated in one short summary that looks like it can be read quickly may help viewers who want to skim. But some of this advantages are defeated because the poster is still extremely dense. For instance:

The address breaks the grid by curling around to the right of the �Introduction� heading. Those are too close. Each one is a separate element, and deserves its own defined space. Instead, the two sections are overlapping in space, and they will look better if separated.

A similar problem occurs with the bottom graph: its space is invaded by the graphs above. This is particularly noticeable where the �Total number of posts� graph (gray box) comes close to touching the blue data line in the graph below.

The text looks pretty brief, but wonder if it could be edited down even more. For example, I took this from 41 words:

Nephrology bloggers are rarely compensated and their writing is not usually considered part of academic production in regards to advancement. Without obvious advantages for the blogger, I thought that bloggers must thrive on internal enthusiasm and it may wane over time.

To 30:

Academic blogging is not usually rewarded in career advancement (e.g., tenure and promotion ). This suggests bloggers are intrinsically motivated, but this may wane if there are no extrinsic rewards.

The more you can edit, the more space you can open up.

I wanted a bit more guidance for all the data on the right side of the poster, so that I know what is being shown here. Some one sentence summaries next to the three main sections would be welcome.

The colours in the table are not explained anywhere. I am guessing �green�means statistically significant, and �orange� means... a decline in posts over time? Maybe that could be mentioned in the main text at the left.

The table is big and dense. Again, I wonder if it could be simplified, either graphically (first step: remove the vertical gridline!) or even removed. If I�m reading it right, some of the information in the table is repeated in the graphs to the right of the table.

The last line of the table - �Totals� - appears to be incorrect. It looks like most of those entries are means, not totals.

Also, the text mentions 30 blogs, but only 22 are plotted.

Where the QR code goes is a mystery. It�s a helps to tell people what they�ll get by scanning a code. Further, the bit.ly short link goes to the same site as the QR code. I suggest picking just one. I lean towards keeping just the QR code, because I have yet to see anyone type in that complicated alphanumeric short URL. But if both were left on the poster, I�d try to make the bit.ly URL the same width as the QR code.

Additional: Joel provides a well mannered response to my critique.

External links

Nephrology Blogosphere poster

Kamis, 04 Desember 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Sex models - Si Bejo Science

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Yes, I totally went for the gutter headline in introducing this poster from Amanda Whitlock. This poster is used with her permission. You can click to enlarge!


Amanda included this note in her email:

After reading your blog, I switched from using Powerpoint to Scribus and have become a huge convert and evangelist on its behalf.

I�m so pleased there is one less person in the world using PowerPoint for posters!


Amanda�s poster has a clean design. It starts with my favourite �hard to mess it up� layout: three columns, equal size.

I recently read an article that argued that anytime you overlay text on a picture, it should always be white text on top of the image. That message might be a good one for all poster makers. Especially when viewing this poster at a reduced size, I�m worried that the title (90% of your communication effort!) is barely visible. I tried a quick and dirty replacement of the black with white:



The edges of the text are badly pixelated because of the way I inverted the colours, but the title is more visible. Let�s try the same to the headings:


The difference is harder to see, but might be more obvious if made in the original document. The headings would also benefit from a bit of additional work to ensure that they are all evenly spaced. �Conclusions� looks closer to the bottom of its bar than �Results,� for example.

The same goes for the vertical alignment. A line that misses the letters in �Conclusion� hits letters in �References,� for instance.


While the poster has plenty of images and white space, it is a shame that the critical upper left corner is the least visually appealing part of the whole poster, with only text.

If you can�t see the title, and there is only words and data, it�s unlikely to gather any new readers who just happened to be walking by. While this poster will not make anyone cringe when they walk past it, they might just... walk past it.

Kamis, 06 November 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: The data flow dragonfly - Si Bejo Science

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Today�s poster is from Marianna Rapaport, and is shown with her permission. Click to enlarge!


Marianna writes:

The poster presents my masters thesis, the general area is programming language research.The only illustrations in my thesis are graphs and math formulas. I wanted to add some graphics to the poster that would attract people (and not scare them away with math). My dad told me that my graph looked like the wings of a dragonfly, so that's where that big insect comes from.

I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable help of my friend Erica Dufour. She helped me to arrange the text boxes and came up with the idea of the gray background that helps the reader understand the order in which to read the material. She also helped me understand how to use Adobe Illustrator and InDesign.

Finally, I used the same font as in this poster on which you also have a critique on your blog

I like this a lot. It�s clean, and has a strong visual impact. The dragonfly is a nice design touch. The use of the contrast colours orange and teal to highlight is consistent, and subtle enough not to be garish or overwhelming.

The one thing I question is the reading order. The "Result" box is not where I would expect it. Based on headings, I would go:

  1. Summary
  2. Intro
  3. Goal
  4. Problem
  5. Method
  6. Result

But based on its position on the poster, �Result� would slot in at position number 4, not 6. Marianna replied:

I agree that the reading order is still unclear. But I don�t even know what could be done about that without changing the whole poster layout.

Regarding the �Result� box, I read somewhere (maybe even on your blog) that it�s a good idea to put the results right in the beginning; in a way, it�s a replacement for the abstract. I thought that in my case, the results are in the beginning and at the same time in the end. But maybe that doesn�t make sense because it�s impossible to understand the results without reading everything else, so you�re right there, too.

Having the results up top, as here, is not horrible. The approach I might have taken would be to think of that top row as the �take home� messages, and the second row as being �for the aficionado.� The trick then becomes distinguishing the two.

The gray band on the second row signals this a little, but it might have been stronger if there was a second cue to signal that the second row was less important. For example, a slightly smaller point size for the text might have helped.

Alternately, perhaps using different way to highlight the �Results� box, instead of the same gray as the row below, would have broken the connection between them, and emphasized that �Result� was meant to stand on its own, as a conclusion. 


Still, the overall effect is quite lovely.

Kamis, 16 Oktober 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Astrophysics code - Si Bejo Science

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Today�s poster is contributed by Alice Allen, and is used with her permission. Click to enlarge:



She wrote:


Under 100 words on this poster... or so I will claim since the screenshots are there to illustrate the points! (Not counting the authors' names, I think the count is 89 words.) This poster is for an online resource that people at the conference are familiar with, and is to inform people of recent changes to the website.


This poster wins points for simplicity. It can be read with a few glances, which is a definite win for any conference poster.

I�m always curious to see what improvements people make on their own. After she sent her first email but before I replied, Alice sent along another iteration.


I think the changes you made for the second version are good ones. Making the title more prominent, and getting rid of the outline around the �Over 900 codes!� were both good moves.

I can see why the screen grabs were rotated as a design element. I�d be tempted to tinker with the amount of rotation. I might try bringing the central screen grabs a little closer to horizontal (though not normal straight up and down).

Tiny little typesetting detail. In the right box, the field �See also� is in quotes, but the links, �Previous� and �Next� are not in quotes. There might be a case for putting �Previous� and �Next� in quotes, too, for consistently. I�m not sure what a style guide would recommend; perhaps there is some subtle stylistic difference between a field and a link.

Kamis, 09 Oktober 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Affective feedback - Si Bejo Science

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Today�s poster comes from Mary Ellen Foster, and is used with her permission. Click to enlarge...


I like the main body of the poster a lot. It�s clean, big, uses lots of graphics, and is well-organized. The one thing I would try would be to crop the middle photo, rather than having other pictures overlapping on top of it.

While I appreciate that there is very little text, this may have been pared down just a little too far. I can�t tell two important things:

  1. What�s the question?
  2. What�s the answer?

As a browser, I often want a take home message.

This isn�t helped by the weak title, which represents most of your communication effort. �Studying the effect of� in a title is bland and uninformative. Every academic thing is �studying the effect of� something. A question would be better, and an answer would be better still.

I�m always sort of surprised that people still try to incorporate institutional logos on their posters as often as they do, given how often they cause problems. This poster is a great example: every logo here weakens the poster.

The logo on the left causes problems because it is too close to text, and it messes up alignment of the authors with the title. That it�s a big dark block makes it draw too much attention away from the title and the authors. The logos on the right just look thrown together and messy.

Hiding among the logos is a QR code. This has a few problems, too. The QR code is high on the poster, which might make it inconvenient to scan, depending on how the poster is mounted. But more importantly: why should I scan it? What does the QR code lead to? It�s always good practice to tell people what they will get!

Related posts

Detective stories: �Whodunnit?� versus �How�s he gonna prove it?�
The epic logo post
Your title is 90% of your poster
Take me home tonight

External links

QR Codes and Visitor Motivation: Tell Them What They'll Get with that Shiny Gadget  (source of the T-shirt picture)

Kamis, 02 Oktober 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Hard problems - Si Bejo Science

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Today�s poster come from Ciaran McCreesh and is shown with permission. Click to enlarge!


My first reaction was, �Nice work!� I like the colours and the clear organization.

Personally, I would try removing the boxes around each section, maybe creating boxes around each column (so there are no horizontal bars).

I�d also want to fiddle with the lower right box to make the bottom edge align with the other two boxes. This poster does such a nice job of keeping things clean and aligned that little things like that stand out!

I like using bold to emphasize key points, but I wonder if there might be a little too much bold. The less you have, the more punch each instance has. It�s diluting some of the impact.

The very top box is a nice attempt to introduce the problem, with sort of a sub-headline. But it doesn�t have any other clear signals to its importance apart from its position. It comes across as a small sliver of text, and your eye hops over it to the first box in the top left. It might benefit by being made larger, or using something else to distinguish its place in the poster�s information hierarchy.

Looking at this from a distance, it feels off kilter, because of the asymmetries in layout. There are uneven columns, and the logo on the right is also breaking the symmetry. I suspect that the title is truly symmetrical when measured with a ruler, but it looks like it�s too far to the left. The normal expectation is that the title will line up with the central column, which is pushed right because the right column is narrow. I suggested making the title aligned to the left (perhaps enlarging a little), and putting the authors and institution on one line below that. Then it could be roughly the same height as the institutional logo.

Here is Ciaran�s revised version:


He wrote:

I followed your suggestions, except for removing the horizontal bars: I couldn't get that to look right. I ended up coming second place in the vote at CP 2014 (http://cp2014.a4cp.org/), which was a pleasant surprise.

Hooray!

Kamis, 18 September 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Microsponges - Si Bejo Science

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This week�s poster comes from Steven Harris Wibowo, a postgrad student at one of my old stomping grounds, the University of Melbourne, Australia.This poster was shown at the IUPAC World Polymer Congress in Thailand; click to enlarge!



He writes:

The organizer asked for a portrait A0 poster. After some soul-searching and brainstorming I came up with this design/concept. I love a dark background and for me, nothing trumps a simple black background if you can do it cleanly. I have also been inspired by neon colours (the movie Tron to be exact) and that's why I picked those bounding lines!

Steven didn�t say if he�s an old school 1982 Tron fan:


Or a fan of the more recent Tron: Legacy, which had an even more limited palette:



I�ve talked before about the power of pastiche; imitating something you like. When I do that, I can get quite obsessive in trying to match things. I would have looked at these images and used an eyedropper tool to match up shades exactly.

Steven didn�t go that route, as you can see by comparing the overall colour scheme in his poster to these images from Tron movies. He�s mostly gone for orange and green on a dark gray over Tron�s signature cool blue over black.

I like that the lines are clearly a design element in the poster, rather than boxes trying to impose order on the poster.

Dark backgrounds can be tricky: ink bleeds in to white spaces on paper, while light shines out of white spaces on screen. I worry that the print might be a little too fine to read. A very slightly heavier type might have worked a bit better.

Steven goes on:

I don�t particularly like to put too many words/explanations into my poster and would rather have spaces between my results and have a brief caption.

This is always a good choice, although this is still a complicated looking poster with a lot of data. Complex multi-part figures are not as intimidating as a block of text, but they come close.

The flow of text is reasonably clear, although it gets a little complicated in the middle. While there are still clearly rows, the combination of the taller box plus the circle in the middle obscures the reading order a little. The use of low-key numbering is helpful here.

This design worked well for him:

The judges and other participants loved the poster, which allowed me to win the best presentation prize!

Nicely done, Steven!

Related posts

Critique: Protein biosynthesis
Bleeding ink

Kamis, 11 September 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Fetal movements - Si Bejo Science

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I often say that when I critique posters on the blog, I am looking at the design of the poster and not the science or technical content of the poster. That is particularly true for this one, submitted by reader Josefine K�hberger. It�s not that there is anything wrong with the poster, but I cannot read German! Click to enlarge:


Here is Josy to provide a little context:

It�s about qualitative aspects of fetal movements. To express that the focus is on maternal sensations and interviews, I used a drawing of a pregnant woman and put a �word cloud� inside her stomach.

This poster is excellent.

The simple image of the woman is so strong, yet so evocative of the subject matter, that anyone walking by should be able to grasp what this poster is about immediately, even from a distance.

The word cloud is a simple way to present text in a visually interesting way. Placing it in the woman�s silhouette is very clever and effective. If you want to make word clouds:


This poster is not cluttered. There is no fear of empty spaces, particularly down at the bottom. That is something that too many poster makers fear. They think every inch of the poster must contain ink. As this poster shows, it does not.

There is a simple, consistent colour scheme to both the text and images. The red in the title looks a little brighter than in the woman�s figure, and I might have wanted to make them the same. But it�s very minor. Red is a very powerful colour, but the combination of a slightly darker, almost brick red on the muted background prevents the red from being overwhelming.

I also love the dual headings, with the black bar on top of bold red text. I don�t know how the text is divided between those two elements, but it is very striking.

Josy says that this site had a hand in the creation of this poster (aw, shucks):

I had to create a poster (my first...) and found your �better posters� instructions on internet... which was a great help. The poster won the first prize. So I want to say �Thank you�!


Kamis, 04 September 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Mouse lungs - Si Bejo Science

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This week�s poster from reader Irena Feng, and is used with her permission. Click to enlarge!



The mouse picture provides an immediate and powerful entry point into the poster. The direction of the mouse�s head draws attention away from the (unnecessary) abstract, and into the introduction and methods, which is a more relevant starting point. The text wrapping around the mouse�s whiskers and body is not perfect, but certainly better than if it had been left square.

Putting the authors above the title is a bit of a risk. It works because the title is set in very large type. Plus, the lightened band of colour under the title makes it higher contrast, thus keeping the title the focus of attention.

I would have liked to have seen a little more consistency in the headings� size. The �Results� heading is larger than the others. Plus, the headings in the text don't match those in the title.

The poster is meant to be read in rows, which is clearly indicated by the use of changing green backgrounds to group the rows together. The green seems to have been selected because many of the micrographs showing in the results are green. I worry about the green being a little dark, however, particularly the first row containing the introduction.

The width of the �Conclusions� section is less than ideal. Typesetters aim for 10-12 words per line of text, and these are at least double that. One solution might be to split the �Conclusions� box into two: one �Conclusions,� then a second that says,  �Next step,� and highlights the last line.

Irena wrote:

I received a lot of attention and a few compliments, with one comment describing it as �better than any grad student�s poster I�ve seen� (I�m a high schooler, so that comment was especially appreciated).

Those compliments are deserved. This poster hits most of the marks you want in a conference poster, and avoids most of the pratfalls that you don�t want.

Kamis, 21 Agustus 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Megafauna - Si Bejo Science

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This week�s poster is from Benjamin Seliger, and is used with his permission. Click to enlarge... or perhaps I should say, �megasize.�


I would stop at this poster if I saw it at a conference. There is much to like about the design. The visuals are very strong and very prominent. I love the pictures of the megafauna, the plants, and the maps. There is not too much text.

This poster accidentally demonstrates the power of proximity and white space. When I glanced at this poster, I thought, �This is a very nice two column layout.� But I should have thought, �This is a nice two row layout.� This poster is meant to be read across first, not down, which is the opposite of what I thought from a glance.

I am supposed to see the poster elements in this grouping:


But instead I see this grouping:


The problem arises because there is a wide, generous margin between the columns, but almost none between the rows. We group things that are close together. The authors have tried to signal that these are in rows using horizontal dividers, but the �signal� from the wide margin in the middle is completely overpowering that from those skinny little lines.

That the headings are not that much bigger in size than the subheadings is not helping matters. Compare the size of �The data� to �Joshua tree� underneath it. The �Joshua tree� and �Honey mesquite� subheadings are reinforcing that this is a two column layout instead of a two row layout. I also wonder if flipping the text position (above the animal picture, but below the plant picture in the top row) is contributing.

Fortunately, the solution is simple. Make the margins between the rows bigger than the divisions between the columns. Here�s a quick and dirty revision:


Margins beat lines and boxes in signalling the organization of your material.

Kamis, 14 Agustus 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Protein simulations - Si Bejo Science

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I was asked to look over this poster (click to enlarge). Now, this is a draft poster, so some of the large empty spots are deliberately empty, because the data were not in when the draft was tweeted to me.


Have I mentioned lately how much I hate photographic backgrounds on posters? I can�t recall ever seeing one that was effective. If the image is good enough and recognizable enough to show, why would you cover is up with text and data?

The gray photo background picked here is a recipe for disaster. The text is hard to read already, and the gray background will make it almost impossible to read at an distance. It�ll be worse if lighting is dim.

Even if the bothersome background is removed, I doubt this poster will pass the arm�s length test. The main text � and to a lesser degree, the headings � on this poster would both benefit from being bigger. This might require some judicious killing of darlings, but the poster will be better for it. One thing that might help is to make the acknowledgements smaller (make it �fine print�) so the conclusions can be bigger. The conclusions are more important, and one way to signal that is how much space it takes up on the page.

I don�t know what�s going on with that blue thing in the middle of the title bar, apart from it distracting me from the title, and making the title harder to read.

The colours in the methods flowchart seem to be picked almost at random. Kuler is a very useful too for picking harmonious colours.

While I can�t tell for certain with this low res image, but it looks like a lot of things aren�t aligned. The heading boxes definitely do not line up with the images in the lower left.

Kamis, 07 Agustus 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: P7C3 - Si Bejo Science

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Bhavna Guduguntla asked if I could help a friend with this poster (click to enlarge):


A few weeks ago, I mentioned that your title (headline) is 90% of your communication effort. This poster would benefit greatly by taking that one board. The title here is probably one of the least visible things on this poster, for two reasons.

First, it�s competing with a bunch of logos, which are sitting in the poster�s prime real estate: the upper right corner.

Second, the title is thin white text on a light gray background. Those facts alone make the title inconspicuous, but it�s made even worse because it�s surrounded by several black elements: one of the logos, and the authors� last names. Your eyes are drawn to the highest contrast elements, and it�s not the title. And darn it, you should see the title.

I like the way the authors� last names are set in black. The last names on a scientific poster are important, because scientific papers are normally referenced by last names. If the names were properly subordinate to the title, this would be an nice design choice.

The main text looks crowded and ill-chosen. The boxes have so much text that the words seem ready to burst out of their boxes. Then, the text is sometimes centered, and sometimes left aligned. Consistency always helps give the appearance of considered, ordered decisions, which is what you want for a research poster. Stick to one format for all text!

The molecule between the two columns is distracting. It sits uncomfortably between the introduction and the data, but doesn�t clearly belong to either section. It�s also crushing up against those other sections.

There are two columns in the middle of the poster: �Log� and �Activity�. I am wondering if these are supposed to be one table? If so, they should touch, and not have a solid band of the background colour between them. Tables are generally not the best way to show data, and I wonder if there is any way to show that as a graph.

I am worried that the graphs at the bottom ones will be hard to see. They are on a coloured background, which reduces their contrast and visibility immediately. And the situation is made worse by the very fine lines used for the graph.

Kamis, 24 Juli 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Immune cells - Si Bejo Science

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Matteo di Bernardo reached out to me on Twitter to ask for feedback on this poster (click to enlarge):


My first and fiercest reaction is, �Ditch the abstract!�  Shorter text and a visual may entice people more than a big block of small text, which sucks away energy like a tombstone in a graveyard.

Likewise, the conclusions seem to have a lot of writing for only a couple of data figures. The conclusions are written as a long list of bullet points. An alternative is to turn the first level of bullets into subheadings. Then, there are a few short bullet lists instead of one massive list.

I had a hard time figuring the main take home message of the conclusions. The poster shows a bunch of evidence, but doesn�t make a single definitive statement that ties it all together. (Matteo replied that the data was not very conclusive, making a punchy concluding statement difficult.)

Speaking of headings, the underline should be removed from the headings. Bold does the job.

I am never crazy about logos bookending the title, although this is not the worst case I�ve seen.

The references are chewing up a lot of space, so I would look for ways to abbreviate them. Perhaps they could be shortened with an �et al.� instead of a complete list of every author, or omitting titles or articles. Remember, the point of a reference on a poster is to allow someone to locate a citation unambiguously, and you don�t need every piece of information in a journal reference to do that.

The figures would benefit from captions. Currently, I have no idea what those images mean.

I would also try lightening the dark box around the western blots. The line could be thinner and more subtle, perhaps with a gray instead of a hard black. Similarly, I might try removing or lightening the horizontal lines in graphs, and changing the red in the bottom graph to something in the blue/green palette the rest of the poster is in.

Matteo asked, �Does the color scheme work? Seems a little bland to me...� I replied, �You want bland. Or, if you prefer, subtle. Colour is very, very easy to overdo.� It may be better to use colours in the images on the poster, rather than bringing it on the background and text.

I do like the ample space on this poster. The use of space is done well enough that I would remove the three boxes around the columns, and just let the margins divide the text.

Kamis, 17 Juli 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: a poster about posters - Si Bejo Science

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This was up at this year�s annual American Association of Law Libraries conference: a poster about a poster (click to enlarge).



I like the idea of this, but I don�t see it as a terribly well designed poster. Too many colours, and too few elements are aligned. The reading order is chaotic, starting with a column, then flipping to rows.

The big red suitcase dominates the poster, but it seems to be one of the less important points of information.

Some of the content is also weak. �Choose software for layout,� for example, has little indication of what software is better than others, or why. Why not use Microsoft Word? (At least, I�m guessing that is what they are trying to convey with the barred red circle.) Further, I have no idea what the middle two icons are.

The poster is 41 inches high, and the (sideways) text on the right suggests that it couldn't be carried on several American airlines. Most of my posters are 42 inches tall (width of our plotter printer in our building), and I�ve never had to check my poster tube.

The fabric poster shows why I still prefer paper posters: fabrics are hard to get to hand as cleanly as paper posters.

Hat tip to Megan Lynch for drawing my attention to this, and to Sarah Glassmeyer for taking the picture.

Kamis, 19 Juni 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Skin, close up - Si Bejo Science

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Today�s contribution comes from Edgar Guevara, and is shown with permission. Click to enlarge!


The clean layout of this poster makes the reading order so clear that you don�t really need the circled numbers in the heading. I like the circled numbers as a bit of a design, though. But they would be even better if they were used consistently: the fourth column gets a �Cont� heading, but not the second.

The major concern I have is that the text has almost no margins around it. The letters at the start and end of each line are practically kissing the background image. I did a very quick and dirty attempt to widen out the margins:


If I were to keep at this, I would try to move the columns up, so that the white boxes weren�t scraping the edge of the paper, and even out the spacing between the columns. But I think this shows that a slightly wider margin improves the look of the text within the columns.

The graphics, while generally nice, are mostly down in the bottom half of the poster. I would be trying to move those images up closer to eye level if possible.

The background image is simple, so it doesn�t detract too much from the main content of the poster.

Although the logos are tastefully contained in the bottom corner, there are so many that they do start to look a little like a car in NASCAR.

Kamis, 12 Juni 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: German chamomile - Si Bejo Science

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Today�s contribution comes from Reyna Gutierrez Rivera, and is used with permission. Click to enlarge!


On the plus side, the �Finding� box at top works well in providing a clear take-home message. The methods flow chart is also a good idea, although it could benefit from being smaller, because...

Everything is too close together! This poster needs wider margins between the columns, between the graphs, just everywhere. Making text smaller or cut some material will be worth it. The place where the poster needs the most clean-up is in the results. You kind of have two columns, but nothing lines up, so it looks disorganized. For instance, the figure and table legends don't line up with their data above them.

Given how much is crowded below, a lot of space can be freed up by putting the institutional address on one line. It's chewing up a lot of space.

Tables are always a problem on posters, because they are not very visual. Can you think of a way to show this graphically? If not, Table 1 would benefit from being wider (or a graph), so you don't have so many words hyphenated. Also, try removing the vertical lines in the table so you don't have a "data prison".

Figure 2 is squashed; the text in the axes give it away.

Kamis, 05 Juni 2014

Latest modern science | Can it be too simple? Plus, critique and revision: number processing - Si Bejo Science

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Andrea Quintero asked:

Can a poster be too boring/simple?

Before I answer, I want to distinguish that posters are about both form and content. In the context of this question, I think �simple� is mostly about the form of the poster � the layout and the graphic elements � not the content. Having too little content doesn�t make a poster �simple�: it makes it stupid.

If you read regularly, you�ve probably realized that I am a believer in simplicity. �Take out the trash� is often my first response to trying to make a poster better. Can a poster be too simple?

I was little surprised to realize that my answer is, �Yes.�

Posters are visual displays. So, a poster with no visual elements is too simple. Here�s something that doesn�t have much business being a poster:

A title and a bunch of paragraphs (even cleanly laid out ones) do not a poster make.

Here�s Andrea�s poster:


She noted that it was influenced in some ways by posters here on the blog. I think the dropped caps may have come from here, as I�ve used them occasionally, but haven�t seen too many other people use. On this poster, the dropped caps are causing problems. From a distance, they �pop� as random letters. This is one symptom of this poster�s need for a stronger sense of hierarchy.

The title, which should always be the most visible and important thing from a distance (it�s your highway sign) is getting lost. The �Attention Network Test,� �Enumeration,� and �Magnitude comparison� headings are popping out first.

Speaking of which, the words �Attention Network Test,� �Enumeration,� and �Magnitude comparison� are doing double duty here. They are both acting as headings, and they are part of a sentence. But the rest of the sentence is lined up at the top of the headings, which breaks our normal expectations.

Let me change the size of the text in this sentence. See how everything lines up at the bottom of the letters along the baseline, not the top?

Anytime you want to use different size text in a sentence, it�s better to line up the bottom than top.

I suggested using slightly more subdued colours for the graphs, rather than the bright primary colours.

The central rows of data are not a bad idea, but they look crowded and busy. The text on the ends bracketing them also look dense.

Andrea wrote that the poster has most of my dissertation work, and that �It is all precious and important to me.� That can be a warning sign. Writers have a saying:

You have to kill your darlings.

That is, there is stuff you might love for some reason. But you often have to edit out stuff you love because it just doesn�t work in the larger context of the story you�re trying to tell, or the time constraints of the medium, or what have you. You have to be ruthless.

After our discussion on Twitter, Andrea went away and created this revision:


I think this is a much improved version. The dark colour band of the title gives it some visual weight, so it�s clearly signifying it as important without increasing the font size. The �popping� dropped caps are gone, and the colours in the graphs aren�t fighting with each other any more. I think the poster still needs a stronger hierachy in the text, but there�s no doubt in my mind that this revision is the better poster.

The poster went well, and Andrea wrote:
I got many compliments on my design. Thanks for the advice!

Kamis, 22 Mei 2014

Latest modern science | Critique: Visualising sound - Si Bejo Science

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In my grad program, we had a grad school departmental seminar every year, where all students would give 15 minute talks on their research. The first year students often gave some of the best talks.

This wasn�t because students got worse as presenters as they went through the program; it was because the incoming students only had project proposals. That weren�t trying to cram everything into a short amount of time.

I am reminded of this because today�s contribution, from Benjamin Gorman, is also a proposal (click to enlarge).


This is an attractive, approachable poster. The first thing that pops out about it is the attractive and consistent colour palette. If you had said, �green and pink� to me, I don�t think I would have expected it to work as well as it does here. My concern, as usual for posters with coloured backgrounds, is how well it will read if it�s in a room with less than ideal lighting.

The use of large images throughout is also a factor in this poster�s attractiveness. They are simple, concrete, and easily recognizable. Again, this is an advantage of having a proposal: you don�t have graphs of data, which are almost always abstract.

While I normally rail against boxes, they work here, for a couple of reasons. There are not many of them. They are light, rather than dark.

Each row contains two columns within it. Normally, I would suggest that these be equally wide. But here, the size of the images, particular of the glasses in the middle, dictate the space the text flows in. Forcing the columns to be equally wide here would require squashing the images in the middle, and I think the result would be less interesting than it is here.
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