Design Poster Instructions

The course prospectus, which was distributed on the first day of class and can be found on the course website, gives some guidelines for the content of the design poster. You can also browse the project archive to see poster samples. Always refer to the prospectus, because not all of the archived posters meet the guidelines.

Some of the required elements for the poster are:

• Current semester and year must appear in the lower right corner of the poster.
• The title of the project
• The name of the sponsor
• The name of the university
• The names of the team members
• The finished poster size must be 20 in. wide by 15 in. tall. (This is the dimension to which the poster will be cut.)

The poster must be submitted electronically in two ways:

1. A PDF document (to be used for printing)
2. A high-resolution JPEG image (to be used for the website and other needs)

Submit both files using the upload deliverables link on the main page.

For Those With Pre-2007 Office on Their Personal Computers

Those of you that own a personal computer might be interested to know there are open-source tools that can be used to create a PDF document. This means that it is free for you to download and install these tools without fear of software piracy. The well-known Adobe software simply adds a lot of functionality for working with PDF documents.

We have had good luck with PDF Creator, which can be downloaded from sourceforge.net. Download the GPL Ghostscript package if you would like to install this on Windows. Other free PDF writers can be found on the internet if you search for the keywords "open source PDF".

PDF Writers Available on Campus

Since all campus standard machines have been upgraded to Office 2010, PDF writing is incorporated into Powerpoint and no external programs or options are necessary.

Tips For Creating the Poster in PowerPoint 2010

1. Open PowerPoint.
2. Choose the "Design" tab and click "Page Setup." Set the width to 20 inches, and the height to 15 inches. Click "OK".
3. Add graphics and text as you would for a PowerPoint presentation, and save your work.

Print to PDF using Powerpoint's Built-in Functionality

1. Open the file in PowerPoint.
2. Choose Save As.
3. In the "Save as type" box, choose "PDF".
4. When the Save As dialogue box opens, choose a file name and make sure the "Standard (publishing online and printing)" radio button is selected.
5. Save your poster and open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
6. Point your mouse to the lower left hand portion of the poster and confirm that it is 20"x15."

Creating the JPEG Image in PowerPoint

1. Open the poster in PowerPoint.
2. Choose Save As.
3. In the "Save as type" box, choose "JPEG File Interchange Format (*.jpg)".
4. Enter an appropriate file name and choose "Save".

Submit the Electronic Documents

Submit the PDF and JPEG versions of your poster. Look for the "Upload Deliverables" section of the course website.