Postersession Thoughts

New Blog!

2010-01-18T05:35:00.001-08:00

The PosterSession blog has moved! Visit us at, http://blog.postersession.com/! Thanks!

To Laminate or Not to Laminate, and Which Laminate to Choose?

2008-11-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

We often get phone calls from research poster presenters who want to know which laminate they should use, and when they should just go with a paper poster. The first question we always ask is “Are you going to use your poster more than once?”
If the answer is no, then there is no reason to laminate. Our paper posters are made of 45# matte paper that's more than twice the thickness of standard copier paper. They will make you look good, and easily last the few days of a conference.

If the answer is yes, or if you want to hang it in your lab afterwards, then you want to consider laminating it. The gloss and matte laminate is applied over our 45# paper adding 5mil plastic laminate to both back and front. The gloss laminate is the most commonly used for research posters. Gloss laminate will make your colors vibrant but you may have glare trouble if the poster is placed above your eyes. Matte laminate has a frosted look that will attenuate glare, and should be used when that's an issue.

Research posters are printed with dye-based inks and after a year (or less if exposed to sunlight) the inks will start to fade. If your poster will hang in your lab or office for some time, ask us about using UV inks. We have ten-year-old posters hanging in our office that were printed with UV inks and were laminated and they still look great!

Going Green

2008-11-25T10:46:00.000-08:00

MegaPrint Inc. is going green! Our soy based inks, and partially recycled paper; along with our group effort here in the office to recycle everything we can, has made us all more conscious of how we

On the top, Stacey loads up paper bundles and lunchroom recycling. On the bottom, Joyce drops a paper bundle down the recycling hatch at the Plymouth recycling center.We understand that it is important to be conscious of how we impact the earth, and we are doing everything we can to keep it clean.Here is a link to a great site for recycling tips for home and the office.

4 Tips for Using PowerPoint to Create a Great Poster!

2008-10-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

Tip #1 – Create your PowerPoint file on one platform and one version. Switching back and forth between PC and Mac, or even moving between different versions of PowerPoint can cause a number of problems, such as Text reflowing and flowing out of boxes, Images dropping out of boxes, and fonts and symbols can change or disappear. If you and a colleague are stuck with a Mac-PC interchange, we suggest you do all the design on one machine and send pdf files to the other person for proofing.

Tip #2 – When designing your poster and resizing images, always remember to hold down shift key while dragging the image from the corner. This will keep your images in the same proportions. If your people or pictures start to look scrunched, be sure you are holding down the shift key.

Tip #3 – Sizing: The default setting on your PowerPoint is “onscreen show” which is 7.5” x 10” and scales up to a 36” x 48” proportionally. However, if you want something bigger than a 36” x 56” you must set it up at half-size due to the limitations of the program, i.e. a 48” x 60” would become a 24” x 30” which we will print at 200%. Or you can use one of our handy templates.

Tip #4 – Stick with Times New Roman, Arial, and Symbol for fonts. These fonts are installed by default on both PC and the Mac, and Symbol has nearly all the Greek characters you'll need. If you have a stylish font on your computer, and one of your collaborators does not, he will be totally confused by your poster because his computer will substitute Times New Roman for the font you used. It will change the text box sizes and cause all sorts of goofiness! If you have gotten a template from a colleague, you may not have a font they used on it. To check, go to Home> Replace>Replace Font in PowerPoint 2007, and Format>Replace Fonts for PowerPoint before 2007. The drop down Replace Fonts box will show you what fonts are used in the PowerPoint document, and if there's a question mark in front of it, that means your document uses a font that is not installed on your computer.

Remember that we are always here to help, and our phone support is free at 800-590-7850.

Logos- They are the worst!

2008-10-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

When you want to put the logo of your organization on your research poster, you will need a hi resolution (hi-rez to those of us in the trade) logo. Something captured off the internet will usually be pretty choppy when printed on a poster.

Where to get one? Usually the public relations or marketing people in your organization will have one. Try the people who design printed materials, or who do events. A good quality jpg works well in PowerPoint. EPS files from a PC will be OK, from a Mac probably not. We have an extensive library of hi-rez logos from most of the universities in the country, and we can send you one if we have it.

To put your logo into your poster, do insert-picture-from file and browse to your hi-rez logo. It will go into the center of your poster, so you may need to zoom out to see it. There are a lot of other tips and tricks to setting up your poster, both on our site's FAQ's and in the materials and methods section of our templates.

Getting Started

2008-05-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

This is a beginning of my blog on producing a nice looking research poster. I am the owner of MegaPrint Inc., and we produce scientific research posters for thousands of researchers. We maintain a website, postersession.com that is designed specifically for the researcher.

Templates for both English and Metric size posters can be downloaded. Copy and paste your information into the template, and then order your poster online. The online ordering will price your poster and the shipping.

What sets us apart from other poster printers, is our ability to make sure your poster is going to be attractive and right. A seasoned graphic designer looks your file over to be sure it has photos and logos of sufficient density, that nothing is out of place, and that it just looks good. We'll call you and straighten things out if we see a problem. Our goal is to make you look good, and we have a dedicated team who understands how important that is.

Printing a poster on a $20,000 six color machine is not the same as slapping something on the glass and making a copy. Our experience in doing several thousand posters a year means that we know how to send your file to the printer so that you get what you see on the screen. The colors will be vibrant, the pictures will be accurate, and best of all, it will professionally present your research.

Just as an aside, my brother, who is a VP of a biotech firm, tells me that he goes to poster sessions to find talent. It could be an important thing in your life that your poster is professionally done!

I'll try to keep this fresh with ideas for doing your poster well. Until next time...