Poster Requirements

If you are presenting a poster, please check if your home institution has poster printing capabilities.

• Your poster must be electronically generated and printed in advance of the conference. If your institution does not have poster printing services on site, we suggest using one of the following services:

  • FedEx Office. During checkout, specify that you will pick up at your local FedEx storefront.

  • postersmith.com. These posters are printed on durable fabric instead of paper and shipped to you.

• Your poster must be no larger than 4' (48") in either dimension. We suggest a landscape format, 48" wide and 36" high.

• Your poster must include your name, your institution, your research advisor's name, and the names of any collaborators or other contributors.

Your poster must be mounted on your assigned board by 9 am on Saturday morning. (Pushpins will be provided.) Each board will be marked with a number, and your number will be listed below prior to the conference.

Tips for a great poster

• Watch out for the resolution of your images! Graphs that look fine on a computer screen are often fuzzy in print—make sure images are generated with a resolution of at least 300 dpi (dots per inch). Screen grabs are usually 72 dpi, and post-processing them to 300 dpi usually doesn't help.

• Do not use anything smaller than 18-point font. For headings, use at least 48-point font. If you are using PowerPoint or Keynote to make your poster, make sure the size of the slide is set to the correct physical size of the poster.

• Avoid jargon. Keep your audience in mind: fellow undergraduate physics majors who are not specialists in your field. If you must use a technical term that your peers may not know, be sure to define and explain it.

• Keep it brief. Save detailed explanations for your verbal interactions with the people stopping by your poster. Your goal should be to write a scaffold for those conversations, with just enough detail that a visitor can quickly understand the basic idea if you aren't there to explain it.

• Use at most two fonts and three colors. The simpler the design, the better.

• Arrange your poster logically. Your poster should lead a visitor through the story you want to tell. Visually draw attention to both the problem your research addresses and to your conclusions. (Tip: try glancing at your poster out of the corner of your eye and see where your eye lands first.)

Check back here later for details on the poster session including:

• when presenters should be available at their posters
• a rubric for poster judging.