Monthly Archives: April 2018

The Joy of Posters! Designing a poster that your audience will want to read

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Caroline Nye is a social science researcher at the University of Exeter, having completed her PhD in rural sociology at the Centre for Rural Policy Research. She holds an MA (hons) in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh, a diploma in International Development from London School of Economics (with a focus on environment) and has several years’ experience working on organic farms and in environmental education. She has also spent several years working further afield on international development projects and in industry in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Caroline’s research expertise focuses on agricultural labour in the UK, examining the changes and challenges associated with farm labour in the transition to sustainable intensification. She is also currently working on a research project examining farmer motivations to participate in conservation-focused farmer clusters, as well as working on a project for Defra.

Academic poster presentations are an important method of sharing your research. But in an age where multiple stimuli are constantly competing for our attention, our brain usually decides within seconds if it wants to continue focussing on any one thing before shifting its attention elsewhere. Attracting a captive audience is, therefore, a challenge. Below are ten things to consider in designing a poster that will catch the reader’s eye. If somebody walks away having retained any information about your research, then your poster has had, yes it’s that magic word, IMPACT!

  1. Look upon it as an exciting opportunity. Here is a chance for you to exercise your creativity in a way you may not be able to during other phases of your academic career. Embrace your inner artist, leap outside of the box and brandish your metaphorical paintbrush with pride. Designing a poster should be a fun project which gets your research out there visually and assists you in defining the key points of your project.
  2. Know your audience. If designing a poster for a mixed audience, start by assuming that your audience knows nothing about either your subject or your discipline. Make it easy to understand and use language that won’t have your reader yawning three lines in. If your poster is for a specific event, a sheet stuffed full of technical jargon can still be overkill, so mix it up to ensure your reader is informed whilst being entertained at the same time.
  3. Before you even begin to add any text, play around with some images that might link your research to the rest of the world. Decide whether you want a backdrop image, images dropped between the text, or a combination. Make sure any pictures you use are relevant, interesting and fun. If a picture can tell your reader what your work is about as soon as they walk into a room, then you’re already winning.
  4. Don’t be afraid to go against the grain. Many students follow a set format which can often make posters look similar and difficult to remember. Innovative examples of poster design include the use of texture, colour or 3D materials (glasses included). One extraordinary design was completed entirely by hand. Be inspired and you will inspire others.
  5. What information do you want your reader to take away with them. What is NEW about your work and what message do you want to get across to your audience? This is your story. You can choose how you tell it.
  6. You cannot fit your entire thesis on to an A3 sheet. The ability to be concise is key here. Identify the principal goals of the thesis, your methods in brief, KEY findings and MAIN conclusions. This will ensure that your poster retains much needed space for visual aesthetics, making reading it a less daunting task for the innocent passer-by.
  7. Font is key! Don’t assume your reader has 20/20 vision. Try not to make the text any smaller than 24pt, and intersperse this with bigger titles and sub titles. It is fun to play around with font styles but many can be hard on the eye for a poster so plain styles can work better alongside good, strong images.
  8. Check sizing and margins before you print. These is nothing more frustrating than adding the final flourish to your masterpiece and then sending it to the printers and unrolling a mess. Text that pushes right up to the edges and poor quality images might reveal unpleasant surprises on print day.
  9. Print it before presentation day. Leaving the printing until the last minute is a common mistake for any student, be it your poster or your actual thesis! Try to print it at least a day early in case you see any glaring mistakes.
  10. Show up! Accompanying your poster with a smile and some enthusiasm will cast a happy, colourful light over your work as you both hang out there proudly. It is an opportunity to show passion for, and knowledge about, your subject on a friendly one-to-one basis. So enjoy!

Written by: Caroline Nye

Twitter: @curlystem

If you wish to enter PGR showcase full details can be found on the PGR showcase webpage. Deadline to apply is: Sunday 22nd May.

ERIC Conference 2018

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On 21st March, the fourth Exploring Research in Cornwall (ERIC) Postgraduate Research Conference was held at the Environment and Sustainability Institute (ESI), Penryn Campus. ERIC is an annual event supported by the Doctoral College but organised by a postgraduate researcher committee.

ERIC hopes to celebrate the quality and diversity of research across the University of Exeter and allows early-stage researchers to attend and become more familiar with a conference environment. It is also an opportunity for PGRs to deliver a talk or present a poster on their research. This year’s themes were: Creative Methods, Changing Worlds and Understanding Nature.

We were delighted to be able to hold ERIC in the ESI and welcomed Professor Juliet Osbourne, Director of the ESI and Chair in Applied Ecology for Exeter University to deliver an opening speech. Ten students then presented talks on their research throughout the day and the breaks provided an opportunity to network and browse the posters. It was fantastic to be able to accommodate talks and posters from students across diverse disciplines, from politics and geology to the Life Sciences.

We also welcomed two keynote speakers from the University. Dr Frank van Veen, Associate professor of ecology and conservation provided an insight into his research on conservation and tourism in Kruger National Park and illustrated how the research from the Cornwall Campus is far-reaching and helping to answer important questions internationally.

Professor David Hosken, an evolutionary biologist and Dean of Strategic Development of the Cornwall Campuses also explained his work on sexual phenotypes, and particularly those associated with sexual selection and sexual conflict. To close the day, David presented his ‘top tips’ for early researchers, including, perhaps most importantly, ‘enjoy it’!

The prize for the best poster was awarded to Mel Weedon: Effects of parental ageing on offspring body mass trajectories in wild European badgers.

The runner up for best poster was Silu Lin: An evolutionary explanation to fertility decline.

The prize for the best talk was awarded to Emma Lou: The home-ranging behaviour of reintroduced orangutans.

The runner up for best talk was Beki Hooper: Killer whales, yellow slime and spa trips: using leftover DNA to elucidate ecologically relevant information.

Overall, the day was a great success and we hope that ERIC can be held again next year. Thank you to all our speakers and to the students who attended or participated and to Sean Meadon and Katie Shanks for acting as judges and providing great feedback on student talks and posters.

Special thanks to Dr Chris Wood and the wider Doctoral College team for their support throughout. Thank you also to the ESI team for allowing us to hold the event in the ESI and their help in making the event a success.

ERIC Committee: Alexandra Gardner (Chair), Ben Phillips, David Sünderhoff, Shari Mang, Thomas Pownall, Angela Hayward, Amina Ghezal, Rachael Smith and Emily Carter.

How art can help communicate science

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Anna Sowa is a documentary film producer with a strong background in international affairs policy and academic research. After completing her BA in Arabic with International Relations, Anna continued her professional and academic interest in international development at SOAS, University of London where she graduated with a distinction MSc in Migration, Mobility and Development. She is the co-founder of Chouette Films–  an award-winning production company committed to using film as a tool for social change. She is a PhD by practice candidate at the London Film School/ University of Exeter researching the role of the producer in collaborative documentary filmmaking.

A piece of advice that I remember from my school drama teacher years ago, is to always practice and test your acting by performing in front of a young child. If the child stays focused and interested, even without necessarily understanding the piece, then you have successfully achieved a genuinely engaging performance. At the same time, this teacher also used to encourage us to be authentic and to stay genuine to ourselves. I now understand how these two pieces of advice are interlinked. The teacher wanted us to find our own way of expressing each piece, to create a performance which both felt natural and was uniquely captivating. Rather than exaggerated or over-dramatic acting, simply for the sake of being shocking or different, innovative and heart-felt acting is the key to engaging an audience.

Although drama lessons may sit on a very different branch of the arts to academic posters, I still find my old teacher’s advice very meaningful to the process of design.

Firstly, testing your work is of pivotal value to poster design. It may seem like a peculiar choice to start with this focus on testing, because it is often under-estimated as a minor and latter part of the design process. However, from my experience it is crucial to continually test an idea from its conception through to its completion as a final product. Share your ideas with someone who works in your field; share them with a stranger; share them with a child. The more diverse the group, the more well-rounded the feedback. Show them your sketches and scribbles to see what catches their interests. Testing ideas gives you the tools to analyse, reshape and build on your design.

Secondly, authenticity is vital to the meaning and impact of a poster. So, make it personal; make it yours. My work investigates the very role that I play: that of the producer. Since the perspective of my study is self-reflective and my PhD is practice-based, it felt natural for the poster to depict myself in action at a film shoot. From afar, the poster’s graphics resemble a regular film poster. Visually, this creates an instant association of the poster with film, no matter how unfamiliar the viewer may be with the subject matter of my research. It is important to make sure that your individual vision for the project remains integral to your design. Pinpoint the key images that represent your work, and experiment with ways of building graphically around these concepts.

Thirdly, I believe that the golden rule of poster design is “less is more”. The busier the poster, the less comprehensive and compelling. Too many sentences can cloud its meaning. Instead, use headlines and bullet points and let the images speak for themselves. Clear and aesthetically simple designs can be the most powerful. Pick out the key words from your research and strip back any unnecessary jargon, so that your poster communicates to every viewer, even a child.

After all, the simple truth behind academic poster design is that art can support science. Far from being its antagonist, art can enhance the clarity of conceptual scientific descriptions.

Written by: Anna Sowa-  Film PhD by Practice Researcher

Chouette films website
Twitter: @ChouetteFilms

Interested in this year’s competition is open until Friday 20 April, full details about Postgradaute Research Showcase, the poster competition and our other competitions, 3 Minute Thesis and Tweet your Thesis can be found here.