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I often use highways signs as metaphors for conference posters. This article describes the typeface selection for highways signs in the United States, and the decision to return to an older (possibly inferior) typeface. Hat tip to Amanda Krauss . Speaking of highways signs, here’s how they might look if designed by academics: Photo from Dan Taber at the recent AAAS meeting. Hat tip to Jamie Vernon. The National Science Foundation has announced the winners of the annual visualization challenge , the Vizzies. There are some nice ones there. I think this baldderwort image is close to the sweet spot for an academic conference poster. What is it about pie charts that bring out the worst in design? Vice magazine should know better than to make the thing above. Hat tip to Arthur Charpentier and Dawn Bazely . Lenny Teytelman caught this rebellious moment: There’s a longer post about the often confusing social media policies of research conferences here . I just learned of Jane Richardson

This week’s contribution comes from Kenneth Chin. Click to enlarge! Let me get to a couple of good things before moving to the ways it could be improved. First, the title is big and cannot be missed. If a title truly is 90% of your communication effort (as I’ve argued elsewhere), this poster is ahead of the game. Second, there are lots of pictures of charismatic animals, including up at the top at eye level. It helps to have a subject that people generally like. I don’t know of anyone who hates manta rays. Third, the main organization is a simple pair of columns. The reading order is not confusing. That said, there are more frustrating things on this poster than good things. This poster is a compendium of common pitfalls. There is way to much text, way too close together. That the poster is so dense calls attention to awkward dead spaces in the poster, shown in red below. I tried a quick and dirty edit to move sections apart by shrinking the text and images a bit. I also took away the