Dalton State Student Technologies: Poster Printing

When assigning projects or assignments or requirements to participate in the Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium (Fall/Spring) please consider using these standardizations as it makes the printing/laminating process more seamless:

There is a 24hr process time on poster submissions, please keep this in mind as you plan for deadlines. 

Poster size: 24x36 standard size for all regular assignments ($5)

Poster with lamination: 24x36 + lamination ($10)

Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium: help give us time to print and process for this event by requiring the deadline for print request submission to be the Friday BEFORE the Symposium (which gives our staff plenty of time to print and organize 100+ poster requests just for this event alone. 

**as an exception---a lot of our STEM faculty and students request the 36x48 size as it is a Conference size--it CANNOT be laminated as our machine is not that wide

ALL submitted posters will need to be picked up by the student requesting within 7 days--We do not have space to store them at the library.

What we need to know from each faculty/staff requiring poster prints at the library so we can seamlessly process your students' requests:

1. Is your department/school paying for the student's poster print? If so, please include the speed code in the email you will send Roberts Library--the speed code is imperative for invoicing purposes
2. Are you requiring lamination? Or is it optional?
3. What is the deadline for the assignment?  **We need to know this so we can plan for printing/processing of items--it is exceedingly busier during the time period just before a Symposium and we need to be able to plan for the amount of supplies to have on hand to accommodate your students' printing requests.
4. How many posters should we expect from your course--are students working individually or in groups where only 1 submission per group is necessary?
5. Please feel free to also attach the assignment details 

Poster Details + Submission Link

Example email you can send to library@daltonstate.edu so we know how many posters to expect, what supplies we need to order to prepare for your class, etc:

Good afternoon,

Please see attached roster for my BIOL3000 course. I have 20 students who should request one 24x36 (not laminated) poster for their end of the semester presentations. Our speed code is__________.

The poster session is on Wednesday, November 19th and the students should have their poster submitted no later than noon on Friday, November 14th so they can be ready in advance to that day. They have been informed that if they submit late and the poster cannot be picked up before 11/19, they will have to find an alternative printing method. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or need additional information from me.

BASIC DESIGN TIPS

Content

Academic posters are a summary of what you did, how you did it, and what you learned. Most are divided into four parts:

• Introduction (what you did)
• Design or methods (how you did it)
• Results
• Conclusion (what you learned)

Space is limited. Choose your words and graphics carefully.

Don’t forget to SPELL CHECK your poster before submitting for print!

Layout

Design your file at full size (100%)  **TEMPLATES up above are already preset with dimensions.                                                                     If your poster is 36″ wide x 24″ tall then set your slide dimensions to 36″ x 24″.

Present information the way you would normally read—left to right, top to bottom.

Use columns and line breaks to divide the poster into smaller sections. Use bullets instead of long paragraphs to summarize information.

Maintain a good contrast between the background color and the text. Consider using a light color background and a dark text. A gradient color fill background, especially black, will print poorly and is not recommended.

Fonts

Someone standing 3–4 feet away should be able to read everything on your poster. Here are some suggested fonts and sizes:

Sans serif: Lucida Sans, Lucida Grande; Serif:  Palatino, Book Antiqua

• Title: 72 point
• Headings/section titles: 40 point
• Body text: 24 point
• Captions: 18 point

Limit yourself to 2–3 types of fonts in order to create consistency and unity.

Images

A picture is worth 1,000 words. Poster content should be 60% images, 40% text. Use graphs, charts, tables, and photos to summarize and present data.

High resolution images (150 dpi or higher) are required for printing high quality posters.

Color mode for best results is CMYK.

Insert images directly into PowerPoint. Don’t cut and paste, or copy and paste.

Copy and paste Excel charts and graphs into PowerPoint.

To adjust an image and retain proper proportion, hold the shift key on your keyboard, click, and drag the corners to scale. Enlarging images in PowerPoint is not recommended.

*Borrowed from https://posters.wsu.edu/making-posters-with-powerpoint/ 

Be sure to put a label either above or below your QR code to identify its content

Website with templates for academic posters: https://colinpurrington.com/tips/poster-design/

Scientific Posters Copyright – Scientific Posters: A Learner's Guide (pressbooks.pub)

Poster templates from presentationposters.com: Research poster design samples | PosterPresentations.com

•  24x36 Poster Example (CAN be laminated) *ENGL

•  36x48 Poster Example (Cannot be laminated) *STEM

  This poster is a standard conference style poster and is an example of one that would be used for any of the STEM programs.

•  36x48 Poster Example (Cannot be laminated) *STEM

  This is another STEM focused poster but gives an idea of how the content is organized as well as graphics use. This is a standard conference-style poster size.