Poster Production
Here are some links we hope will help with your poster projects:
- Preparing your poster (pdf file by Josh London)
- To print your poster on campus, see UW Posters.com.
We recommend you review the links provided on the Help page. As of February 2009, typical pricing for color printing—matte or semi-gloss paper—is $32 for 24"x36" and $49 for 36"x48."
SAFS Logo
Whenever you produce a poster under SAFS auspices, it is a good idea to include the school logo. Several versions (150dpi and 300dpi .tif files and one 300dpi .jpg) are available on our website. Please be sure to review the logo_readme.txt file for further info and usage criteria.
General Tips
Aesthetics—Less is more: generally, fine details are for technical reports. But you can allow for a technical audience, which is used to lots of info in small container. Navigability often is overlooked but should be addressed—try your layout on someone unfamiliar with the subject matter to see whether they can follow the information path in the proper sequence.
Application—In addition to the "what/where/why/who" determinations addressed in the above-linked pdf, determine how many forms of media in which you intend to retool the content. If you do plan on retooling, you may find PowerPoint falls short when high-resolution quality printing is required.
Color—Color fidelity (i.e., WYSIWYG) is problematic. If color is crucial, create a narrow table column with all the colors you want (one/each cell), 1-inch wide, and print to poster for inexpensive color check. There is a useful online color schemer for complementary colors:
Photos—Digital camera images often come in at 72 dpi but really large physical dimensions (22"X16"). In Photoshop, fix is easy: Image Size–deselect "resample" button, type image resolution or size, whichever you want to be the primary parameter. The higher the ppi, the smaller the image size (and vice versa). Max photo resolution for plotter: 300 without scaling. If scaling (e.g., PageMaker), follow Josh's guide on that. For raster imaging programs other than Photoshop, you often can still apply the same principle for scaling 72-dpi images to higher resolution.
PowerPoint—Many of you have no choice, but PowerPoint has many problems despite what the Locke Computer experts say. Nonetheless, if you're not familiar with other, more advanced graphics programs, PowerPoint is the best choice.
Testing—Test print locally; if it won't print locally, it's almost guaranteed not to print on the color plotter at Health Sciences.
