Getting posters printed at Biology New Media Center (BNMC)

How to build a poster stand out of 1.5 inch pvc pipe:(Click for schematic)

1. The center is located on the third floor of Genetics/Biotechnology in room 3130. Their website is http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/ltde/nmc/bnmc/index.htm phone 608-265-4817
2. Anyone at UW can use BNMC. (You don't have to be a biologist)
3. You need a UW Requisition number to pay for your poster.
4. The rate is $5 per square foot. So a three-by-four-foot poster costs $60.
5. The width of the paper is 36 inches or 44 inches, but your file should be no wider than 35.5 inches or 43.5 inches. It can be any length.
6. The best program to use to develop your poster is Adobe Illustrator.
7. The BNMC software can also print posters from large .jpg files saved by Adobe Photoshop.
8. It is specifically recommended that you NOT create your poster in PowerPoint.
9. You need to make an appointment in advance to print your poster.
10. Allow about 2 hours for printing your first poster, one hour for every poster after that.
11. You need to bring your poster file on a zip disk, a cd, the hard drive of your laptop, or place it on a web or network server to download to BNMC.
12. It's a good idea to bring a tube to take your poster away in. BNMC does not provide tubes. A cool kind of tube is something called a "bat tube," developed for storing souvenir baseball bats, but perfect for posters, because it is a clear tube. (See photo below) You don't need to label your poster tubes, because you can see which poster is inside if you store it print-side-out. You can order them online from http://www.creativesportsent.com/suppainpenfo.html, which offered 20 tubes for $80, or one for $5.99.
13. For examples of some science posters for the public see http://www.biotech.wisc.edu/seebiotech/postercollection.html
14. Save your poster using the "CMYK" color scheme rather than "RGB"

Other tips for posters

1. Make everything big
2. Don't use too many words. This is not a professional scientific meeting poster, it's a reach-the-public poster. Imagine people are going to view it from a conveyor belt moving by the poster at 2 miles an hour. How much can they absorb in the few seconds they have to look?
3. Use the brightest colors you can without making it illegible.
4. Break out of rectangularity in terms of how you arrange elements on the poster. Don't do your poster as if it's made from a series of letter-size pieces of paper. Arrange items in circles, arrange them in snake-shapes.

File last updated: January 26, 2005
Feedback, questions or accessibility issues: zinnen@biotech.wisc.edu
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