Last updated: April 23, 2007

Project Poster

One of the final requirements in this course is the development of a professional quality poster describing the project you developed during the semester.  All posters will be displayed during the annual Engineering Design Exposition held each year during the last week of April or the first week of May.  Here are some suggestions for creating a visually impressive and descriptive poster:

• Create your poster using an appropriate graphics package.  The poster should be approximately 32 by 40 inches in size.  If you are using Microsoft PowerPoint you should use Page Setup to set the page size to 32 by 40 inches.  At this point you have a large drawing area to work with.  You can create your poster in this large work space or you can create a series of smaller slides and then insert them in the location you want in the larger drawing. 

• Have your poster printed by Digital Imaging located in the UI Commons building or by some other suitably equipped facility.  Print your poster on high quality paper and have the poster laminated.

• Design your poster for an audience that does not have a detailed computer science background.

• What you decide to include in the poster is up to you, but make sure there is a something that identifies the project and the participants, something that defines the problem you solved and why it was important to the customer, and something that illustrates your design approach.  You should also provide a synopsis of the significant features of the solution.  For a software product with a significant user interface, you will probably find it useful to including real screen shot accompanied by a short narrative descriptions.

• Make sure the name of your project, your name, the name of your sponsor, and the course name are prominently displayed. 

• You may develop your poster using either a portrait or landscape orientation.  In the past, landscape orientation seems to work the best in most situations.

• Make sure that you use a font size that can be easily viewed from a short distance away.  Generally you don't want to write long paragraphs describing your project.

• Make the flow from one section or graphic to the next easy to follow.  You can even give clues by using arrows to show progression.

• Make effective use of contrast and color.  As a general rule a monochromatic (solid color) background will not print very well. Use a solid white, gradient colored or textured background, but don't let the background become the dominate visual feature of the poster.

• Make your poster attractive and eye catching, but not too flashy.  You want to get the viewer's attention and hold their interest.

• Examples of posters from other disciplines can be seen in the hallways of the Engineering/Physics building.  We also have a few of the CS 481 posters from recent semesters hanging in JEB 128 and in the vicinity of JEB 324.

After the Engineering Design Exposition, posters will be retained for display in the CS Department.