Guidelines for ECE 477 Posters

OVERVIEW

Purpose:

The purpose is of the poster is to:

• Showcase the work you have done in ECE 477
• Impress tuition-paying parents and liberal arts friends
• Encourage corporate donations to student projects
• Help educate future generations of senior design students

Audience:

Posters are to be designed with a broad audience in mind: future senior design students, parents of students, alumni, and distinguished guests. Initially they will be displayed at the open house following the College of Engineering graduation ceremony.

DETAILS

Specifications for Posters:

• Uniform size:  36" wide x 24" high (for printing on ink jet plotter in lab)
• Lettering must be at least 10mm tall. Use bold 36-point or larger type
• Use Power Point
• Posters must include the following:
  • Name of the Team
  • Concise statement of the project description
  • Visual information - pictures, figures, plots - is essential for a good poster. Text should be used sparingly.  
    • Pictures of various implemented designs - pictures of your system in use
    • Charts, drawings, sketches of designs
  • Heading at top for identification: "ECE 477 Digital Systems Senior Design Project - Semester"
  • Please be aware of the Purdue branding guidelines
    

Important Tips for Posters:

• If you want to insert an existing Power Point slide to your overall slide,  you will have to save your existing slide as jpeg or gif and then insert it
  as a picture.
  
• AutoCAD drawings can also be directly inserted into Power Point, with few modifications, as long as the export command under the file  menu is selected.  Select one of  the two file extension formats:  
  • .eps file format
  • .wmf file format
• Pictures imported from web sites are low resolution images.   It is best to avoid using these images in your poster.  Instead, take new ones.
• Copy and Paste will often only give you a low-resolution copy of a graphic. Instead it is better to insert the picture rather than copy and pasting it.
• If taking pictures make sure to select highest resolution (~100dpi to 120dpi) and if possible save it as .tif rather than .jpg file. Tiff file format is free
  from any alterations to your picture, although the tiff files are generally large in size.
• All scanned and imported images should preferably be in RGB mode.
  
• Leave at least a 1 inch margin around the edges of the poster to prevent cropping and to increase readability. To display the ruler, go to the View menu and select Ruler.
• Use fonts like Arial, Franklin Gothic Heavy, Trebuchet, or Verdana for titles; size should be at least 72. Subtitle at least 48 point in size and Body text at least 36. (100-point text is about 1 inch high).
• Graphics should tend toward the horizontal, greater in length than height, ideally 50 percent wider than tall
• It is recommended that you embed the true type fonts when saving the poster.  To do this:
  • When saving go to the File pull down & choose “Save As”.
  • At the top of the dialog box you will see button called “Tools”. Click that.
  • You'll see a check box that says "embed true type fonts" make sure this is checked and then name and save your file
    
• Do not try to squeeze an excessive amount of material on the poster.  it does not have to illustrate every detail about the project.
• Test for readability: step back four feet from your design to evaluate how it will look (or put it on the floor and see if you can read it).
• Do not use yellow, red, or orange too often - these colors are not readable from a distance.
• Neatness counts.
• Be creative!