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Senin, 09 Februari 2015

Latest modern science | Analyzing the Vaquero logo, or: Who was that tanned man? - Si Bejo Science

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The UTRGV mascot was unveiled... at 4:00 pm on Friday afternoon. I do not think the timing of this release was accidental. After the uproar that followed the announcement of the ��Vaqueros� name, I think someone hoped that late Friday afternoon would provide a �soft launch� for the logo.

Pros.

I like the look of the logo overall. The horse and rider look dynamic and distinctive. It reads well from a distance.

There is one thing I absolutely love about this logo. It�s a little Easter egg that shows a very sharp, professional graphic designer did this. There is a map of Texas hidden in the negative space of the horse's front and back legs. That is just a detail that delights.


Cons.

In the full colour version of the logo, the rider looks like he�s had a spray on tanning mishap. Sort of like Ross in the Friends episode, �The One with Ross�s Tan.�


Our female athletes got ignored. We have dozens of alternate logos, and there are no Vaqueras. Not even a team name in any of the zillion logo variants.

Our friends at Brownsville got short changed. Again. Most seriously, several of the logo variants have the outline of the state of Texas, and a single star in the Valley... pretty much right on Edinburg, where UTPA is. Either there should be a star for each campus, or no stars.


On a minor note, the UTRGV colours are supposed to be orange, green (UTPA�s heritage colour) and blue (UTB�s heritage colour). But in the full colour logo, the navy blue it so dark that it doesn't read as blue.

Some people have said there are some similarities with the Texas Tech Mascot, the Red Raiders. Both have a man on horseback.


I personally don�t see this as a big problem. The colours, poses, letters... There is no way the two would ever be confused.

The lettering looks very similar to the type used for the current UTPA logo, and to other institutions.

Overall, the logo is sharp, but it�s a shame that it doesn�t show awareness of the criticisms of the Vaqueros name, and the regional tensions that have been brewing because of it.

External links

What the future holds

Kamis, 05 Februari 2015

Latest modern science | There�s a poster session on Twitter now - Si Bejo Science

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Check out the hashtag #RSCAnalyticalPoster on 5-6 February 2015. It�s an online poster session on analytical chemistry, sponsored by Royal Society of Chemistry Analytical Science. Read more about the whys and wherefores here. I�ll try to update this post with some comments later.

Latest modern science | Don�t get mad, get playful - Si Bejo Science

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Most people want to give talks at conferences instead of posters. David Schulz was denied the opportunity to give a talk, he was mad. His anger drove him to �go there� in poster design � and the result was a roaring success.

Let�s break it down and look at some of the elements that gave him such success.


First, he has balloons. Balloons! Not only does looking at them make you reflexively smile, they act like a highway sign for his poster. The balloons will be visible from almost anywhere in the poster hall, rising above the horizon. People will see them and wonder what they�re for, and might wander over to have a peek.

When they get there, the viewer is invited to play a little game:


You can get the answer by lifting the flaps. It�s very hard to resist interacting with the poster now, because it almost captures some of the feel of a pop-up book. I�ve shown a few examples of other �pop up� panels and flipbooks, and this falls into that category.

The answers are also written on the handouts that David has on the table. This encourages people to pick them up, and makes them more likely to take them away, which means more connections between David and the people who saw his poster.

Looking at David�s set-up, I would have liked his poster to be bigger and use more of the available space. I also might have gone for a more subdued colour scheme. But this poster is so good at saying, �Hey! You! Yes, you! Come over here and look at me!� that it clearly overcame some of the weaker elements of its design.



At the end, David said:

(I)t was one of the most engaging scientific activities I had ever done. Given that the average attendance at any given session was less than 100 people (and usually 30-50 people), I received more substantive feedback from people during the poster than the one or two polite questions I would have received had I given an oral presentation. I gave out nearly all my handouts, which meant that I directly interacted with at least as many as would have likely sat passively through an oral presentation.

Never lose sight of what a poster is for. It�s a conversation starter. And this poster did that job admirably.

David�s blog, Eloquent Science, has many other posts about conference posters that I�m just starting to dig into.

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External links

Rethinking Poster Sessions as Second-Class
Proof that a poster can be attractive to an audience

Kamis, 29 Januari 2015

Latest modern science | Link roundup for January 2015 - Si Bejo Science

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A poster using augmented reality, courtesy of creator Stuart Eve.


Stuart writes:

I am of course not the first person to use AR in a poster, but I am sure that it will become a lot more popular as it really is an excellent way of adding content to a poster, without being too intrusive. I guess at the moment it could be seen as being a little gimmicky, however this isn�t all that bad when trying to attract people to your poster and your research. One of the important things to remember though is that the poster needs to be able to stand on it�s own without the AR content, as it is quite an ask at the moment to get people to download an app on their phone just to learn more about your research.

The Biophysical Society has a short post on how to prepare for a poster presentation.


Katie Mack reminded us of poster etiquette (my emphasis)

Escalator policy is: Stand on right, let people rush past to catch sessions/etc on left. No clotheslining with poster tubes.

Not everyone agreed.

Isn�t that the whole reason for making posters??? - Michael Jewell

That and cardboard tube sword fights. � Matthew Buckley

Jon Tennant notes ORCID offers a new service:

Just ordered some ORCID QR code stickers - snazzy and useful! Can put on poster presentations, etc.

The problem of too many logos on posters, revisited by Kim Martini. The solution:


While the title of this post is 7 tips for women at conferences, the ideas within are helpful regardless of your gender. Hat tip to Ivan Oransky.

While few people want to be jackasses, sometimes, we forget and end up being jackasses. Stacey Patton reminds us how not be be a jackass at a conference. Perhaps most relevant to poster sessions is this tip:

Once it has served its purpose, don�t stare at the name badge.

Paul Armstrong provides a reminder of why you need to align things by eye sometimes. The responses to his original tweet are worth reading, too.


Shit Academics Say contributes this bit of poster philosophy:

A. There is nothing new under the sun.
B. Sure, but at least change the poster title.
A. Fine.

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, 15 Januari 2015

Latest modern science | Using what everyone else is using - Si Bejo Science

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Using what everyone else is using can be both a problem and a solution. It just depends on who �everyone� is.

When �everyone� is academics, the type faces that appear never seem to reach beyond what�s installed on their computer. And people use those default fonts to death. Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri... all get overused.

Here�s a shortcut to making your poster look more modern:

Use what everyone else is using � except that by �everyone,� I mean designers, not academics.

If you take a second to life your head up and look around at what people outside academia are using, you�re liable to find something that looks contemporary rather than tired. Heck, for a lot of academics, you that might even look edgy and daring.

MyFonts just released put out a big blog post of their most popular typefaces of last year, and you won�t find any of the familiar default computer fonts there. It notes:

Popular typefaces in 2014 seemed to come from two opposite directions. They were either clean and simple, or informal and festive, with a hand-made touch.

And this is good news for poster designers, who are normally looking for something in the �clean and simple� department. I see no less than four good candidates for posters. We�ve got Brix Sans up top. Here�s Texta:


And while many of the other typefaces might not be great for the main text body, they might do wonders for titles or headings.

Go to the post to see more! And don�t forget to keep looking at the kinds of typefaces you see on the opening and closing credits of film and television shows, on magazines, on billboards, and other places.

External links

Most popular fonts of 2014

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.

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