Latest modern science

Kamis, 09 Januari 2014

Latest modern science | Hung low - Si Bejo Science

Lots of people take pictures of themselves presenting their poster. Like Zoe Amber, who tweeted this picture from the fiftieth anniversary Annual Discussion Meeting of the Quaternary Research Association:

Or Anna Bourne and Peter Abbott (tweeted by Swansea Tephra Group):

I�ve seen a lot of bad practices that conference organizers have inflicted on poster presenters, but this might be one of the worst. First, the bottom poster hangs from knee to nipple line. For someone to read the poster midsection closely, to look at the key data, means that they have to be looking down... almost exactly at the level of the presenter�s crotch.

People should never have to squat, crouch, or bend to read posters. Just a horrible, horrible decision.

Even putting the inadvertent gaze problem aside, having two posters on top of each other is a poor decision because the viewers of one poster will block the viewers of the other poster.

If the idea was to present the posters at alternate times... I have yet to be at a conference where people pay close attention to �Odd numbers at 2:30, even numbers at 3:30� sort of scheme. Poster sessions are too unstructured, too much of a free for all, and viewers will stop and look at whatever poster happens to get their attention.

Disappointing, Quaternary Research Association. What on earth led to this decision? Did nobody stop to say, �This might not be a good idea?�

Additional, 13 January 2014: I asked QRA50 attendees for their reactions to the poster session on Twitter. Drysdyk replied:

Lying together on the floor did add to the QRA fieldwork feel - and at least one of the winning posters was a lowy :-)

Hat tip to T. Davies-Barnard for bringing this to my attention!

Kamis, 02 Januari 2014

Latest modern science | Go now! Kidd's book a wonderful intro - Si Bejo Science

reviews

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Doctor Who writer Terrance Dicks said that when he wanted to do research on a subject for a script, he would head to the library, and go straight to the kid�s section. Books for kids or young adults, he found, gave him all the major information he needed, but in a much more approachable and concise form than books for adults.

With that in mind, a lot of academics might want to have a look at Go: A Kidd's Guide to Graphic Design by Chip Kidd.

What you can�t see from the cover image at right is that this is a big book, with big text. It has a cardboard cover, like you associate with young kid�s books. And the interiors look gorgeous, a real kaleidoscope of different images and looks.

This book is playful. When you open up the cover, inside it reads:

Congratulations, you have decided to open this book, even though you have no idea what it�s about because the cover doesn't tell you much. In fact, the cover is weird weird and seemingly at cross-purposes with the message and possibly even a bit pretentious. And you know what? That was a design decision. Yes, indeed. Whether you realize it or not, most of the decisions you make, every day, are by design.

It�s friendly. Early on, Kidd asks the reader, �Why should you believe me?�, and gives a self-deprecating answer:

Overall, I think I�ve done over 1,000 book covers to date. That fact alone, of course, doesn't necessarily prove that any of them are good.

It�s informative, for a new reader who has never thought about design before. Make no mistake, this is an introductory book.

Chapter 1 lays out a lot of basic elements that go into graphic design, like size, colours, negative space, and image quality. There are a lot of concepts, each given 2-4 pages or so.

Type gets a chapter all to itself, in Chapter 2. As with Chapter 1, you get briefly introduced to the lingo (points, leading, etc.) through a lot of examples.

Chapters 3 and 4 are short, asking, �What are you trying to communicate?� (content) and �How are you trying to communicate it?� (concept).

Chapter 5 provides a series of short projects to get the creative juices flowing. They range from �start a collection� to �remake something you love� to �make a logo for a cause you believe in.�

Most of the stuff in this book I have covered in the last few years writing this blog. But even though all the material here is basic, and I already knew it, the book is so engaging that I was never bored revisiting material I already knew. I wanted to see how Kidd would explain it to me.

Go is allegedly aimed at young people, but it�s perfect for a novice of any age. It never feels condescending, and never feels like the good stuff is being held back for when you�re older. Go is a great place for anyone to start thinking about design, even a grown-up working towards a Ph.D., or a grown-up who got one years ago.

Bonus quote from this interview:

Your book talks a lot about fonts. Why do you have such strong feelings about them?
I want everyone to educate themselves more about typefaces � a lot of them won�t hold up to the test of time, and will look super dated in 10 years.

Like Comic Sans?
Yes, I think it�s terrible. It�s the 8-track tape of typefaces, but you see it everywhere!

External Links

Go: The book
Good is Dead: Chip Kidd�s home page

Senin, 30 Desember 2013

Latest modern science | New Year�s Resolution: No more Comic Sans! - Si Bejo Science

typefaces

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Regular readers know that I love comics, but hate Comic Sans. A lot of academics use it because they want something that looks handwritten, and they don�t have anything else on their computer that fills the bill.

No more excuses. Make a New Year�s resolution to never put Comic Sans on a poster (or a slide) again. You can start that resolution by getting some new fonts specifically made by and for professional comic book letterers. Richard Starkings of ComicCraft is having a sale!

The New Year�s Sale is at ComicBookFonts.com. Fonts are a mere twenty bucks and 14 cents. ($20.14... get it?) There are lots of other resources there that may interest poster makers, too, like this one on reading flow.

And nobody paid me to say that, either!

External links

ComicBookFonts.com

Kamis, 26 Desember 2013

Latest modern science | Link roundup for December 2013 - Si Bejo Science

link roundup type crimes

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�Fonts have feelings too� is a nice look at typography by Mikael Cho (hat tip to Julie Dirksen). I am indebted for it sharing this visual on text legibility, originally from here:

Namnezia has a nice take on what a poster is for, and why you shouldn�t hold back on presenting stuff on it:

(A poster) is not a press release, or pre publication. Rather it is a chance to present your work and get your colleagues excited about it.

Apparently, many poster authors get their work done here. From I Can Haz Cheezburger.

The difference between screen and print. ICHC again.

ICHC is on a roll.

And I�ve got one more, showing the power of proximity is great. Do not abuse it! Courtesy of Scott Jordan Harris:

The American Society for Cell Biology has a little rationale and tutorial for putting a poster in the cloud. It emphasizes figshare, which has been featured on the blog before.

ACNP spotted this creative and interesting poster tube:

Kamis, 19 Desember 2013

Latest modern science | Why kerning matters - Si Bejo Science

type crimes

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Hat tip to MyTChondria.

Kamis, 12 Desember 2013

Latest modern science | The one inch rule - Si Bejo Science

layout

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One of the most common problems on posters is that things are too close together, which creates the impression of clutter. Let me propose an easy to remember rule for you.

Every element on the poster should have one inch between it and anything else.

The tricky part is to determine what makes up an �element.� For instance, I would treat the following as single �elements.�

The title, author credits, and institutional affiliations.
A heading and the text below it.
A figure and its caption or legend.
A column.

Examples of different �elements� that should have one inch of space between them:

The title and any logo.
The authors list or institutional affiliations and the text below it.
The bottom of one section of text and the next heading.
Every picture or graph, top and bottom, left and right.
Separate columns.

Here�s a quick way to check. Sinply draw a long, skinny, one inch box. Or maybe two: one horizontal, and one vertical. Send these boxes to the �back� layer so nothing autoflows around them. Drag them anywhere to make sure there is enough separation.

Kamis, 05 Desember 2013

Latest modern science | Identifying poster authors: conference organizers, ask for ORCIDs! - Si Bejo Science

for organizers

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I�m lucky. I have an unusual name. The only other Faulkes I know in biology is Chris Faulkes, who does research on mole rats. While I paid the price for having an unusual name in elementary school, I am now reaping a benefit: it�s easy to find my research online.

I feel for K.L. Smith. She told this on Story Collider:

I had just published my master�s thesis under my maiden name, �Smith.� And I was looking in Web of Science to try to find my publication, but there were over 90,000 papers by K.L. Smith. So I was just lost.

I�m not an old fashioned person, I hadn�t wanted to change my last name, but I have to admit, when I was a kid, I used to dream of having an exotic last name, because I was kind of tired of getting lost in the sea of Smiths.

Things started to go well, and we were talking on OK Cupid, and I remember asking Zach what his last name was, and I was already kind of like falling for him, �cause I thought he was great, and he wrote back, and he was like, �My last name is �Weiner.��

And I was like, �This is not what I had in mind.�

But anyway, so then I checked Web of Science to check how many Weiners there were, right? Because if you�re going to take that name, you don�t want to take that hit for nothing. ... But it turns out there�s a lot of Weiners out there. So taking the name Weiner wasn�t really going to help me out that much. It would cut a couple of thousand off, but yeah, I�m not going to take that hit for nothing. But there�s no Weinersmith � all one word. And so, and I thought that was really hilarious, actually, because I�m 12 inside.

And we decided to call ourselves the Weinersmiths for the sake of my career, but I wasn�t going down alone, so I took him down with me. So at that point we became the Weinersmiths.

Kelly�s story is a great example of why we need ORCID. For those who don�t have one yet (and you should get one), ORCID is sort of an author�s serial number. Its goal is to distinguish which of the 90,000 papers by K.L. Smith were written by Kelly Weinersmith, formerly Smith, who told the story above.

I am thankful to Mike Taylor, tweeted:

Academic conference organisers. Nearly 400,000 ORCIDs have been created in a year. Collect them. Use them. Please.

So far, I have yet to see a single conference that asks for my ORCID, even for conferences that intend to publish the abstracts. Conference abstracts are increasing becoming archived rather than being ephemeral, so it would be valuable to start connecting them to specific authors in a systematic way.

P.S.—If you are interested in the forum that Kelly told her story, become a patron of Story Collider!

External links

ORCID
Two nerds fall in love (Name story starts at about 8 minutes in)