DESIGNING AN ENGINEERING POSTER*

HIERARCHY, LEGIBILITY, CONSISTENCY

VERSION 1.1

* THIS WILL NOT MAKE YOU A GRAPHIC DESIGNER, NOR IS THAT ITS PURPOSE.
THIS IS TO HELP GUIDE YOU IN MAKING DECISIONS ON PUTTING YOUR POSTER TOGETHER.
YOUR GOAL IS TO HAVE THE INFORMATION PRESENTED IN AN
APPROACHABLE AND EASY TO FOLLOW WAY

To achieve this, you need to:

1. Establish a Hierarchy within your information (Layout)
2. Create Consistency to remove distractions (Font & Color)
3. Promote Legibility to make everything readable (Font & Color)
Layout
Examples of Layout Options

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A. Straightforward:
These posters read top to bottom and leave little confusion on where the
audience needs to look first

What could be done to improve this poster:

Example A: allow for more spacing between text and images, to improve legibility
of the information
Example B: Explore other shapes besides the rounded rectangle shape for the
text boxes. A simple Rectangular box may respond better to the format of the
images residing next to the information
Layout
Examples of Layout Options

Smart Public Restroom (SPR) Amer Bualhasan, Elif Erdogdu, Aman Gola, John McGrogan, Matt Heidelbaugh
1
Public restrooms are unreliably clean for a variety of reasons, though primarily
inefficient maintenance.
SPR tackles the maintenance problem by implementing Smart Restrooms
through ThingWorx using Internet of Things (IoT). 2
ThingWorx is an IoT development platform. SPR Mashup - User Interface:
It supports connectivity, analysis, and
progression of IoT development.
Using ThingWorx, SPR gathers information from
connected devices, analyzes the data, and
creates an action.

SPR connects 3 systems through

ThingWorx Edge Java SDK Application collects data

received from Raspberry Pi Sensors. 3 4
ThingWorx model stores data received from
ThingWorx Edge application.

ThingWorx Mashup displays data and alerts user which

appliance needs maintenance in the restroom.

Design:

Data
User Interface ThingWorx Model Data Collection
Transmission

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B. Mixing it up
This layout takes the straightforward layout and adds a horizontal reading element
with #3 and #4. This works because this arrangement takes advantage of people’s
tendency to read left to right.

What could be done to improve this poster:

Example A: Add content headers to allow for better understanding of what the
information is saying.
Example B: Rearrange content #4 to align closer to #3 to allow for better hierarchy
Layout
Improving a Layout

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C. Improving a layout
The improved layout limits how much the audience’s gaze needs to move. Instead
of jumping from the bottom of the page to the top, the audience can now
continue moving their gaze in a general top to bottom direction.
FONTS
1. Do you want your Title font to be different than your body (paragraph) font?
A. No
B. Yes
C. I do not care

A. Pick a font that has a lot of weight options, like Roboto. Use a heavier weight option
for the Title and subheading (authors, companies). Use a lighter weight option for the
Body text (results, sentences, etc.)

Roboto Oswald
Roboto Title (Black)
Subheading (Medium)

Body
Body (Light)
Subheading
Oswald Title (Bold)
Subheading (Medium)
Body (Light)

Avenir Title (Heavy)

Title

Subheading (Medium)
Body (Light)
https://fonts.google.com/

B. Go to fonts.google.com
Input your poster title into one of the
text boxes and click apply to all fonts.
Find a font you like (stay away from
Handwriting fonts (a term used in the
search feature of the site) because they
do not portray the professionalism that
you need in your poster). Once you have
chosen a font, go to that font’s page
and look for its popular pairings. Pick
one of those pairing fonts to be your
font for your body text.

https://fonts.google.com/

This image is just an example, this is in no way

recommending this font for a title.

C. Follow Option A.
FONTS
What is considered your subheading?
Your list of authors, company name, and your headers above each section of your
poster (Introduction, Results, Conclusion, etc.)
What is considered for your body text?
The content that follows the headers, the text inside the charts, etc.
2. You should have no more than THREE font sizes in your poster
A. Title Font Size (varies)
B. Subheading Font Size (pick a size between: 24 pt-18 pt)
C. Body Text (pick a size between: 16 pt-12 pt)

3. Awkward Moments to Avoid

A. Hyphenating

Here is my title, it is long and awk-

wardly cuts some words in half
Do not let your title be hyphenated--it just looks awkard and ugly

Here is my title, it is long and

awkwardly cuts some words in half
B. Imbalance

Here is a title that is long and

necessary
Try to limit the imbalance between the first line and second line,
in regards to how many words are there

Here is a title that is

long and necessary
Colors
1. No more than 3-4 colors in your poster.
2. For color schemes options, go to design-seeds.com
- On this site you can search by color
- Focus on calmer colors over vibrant colors
- Look for color schemes that provide a strong contrast.

3. Does your company already have a color?

- Go to color.adobe.com
- On this site, you can input the company color and it will
give you compatable colors to use

4. Avoid
- Vibrant color backgrounds, your information will be lost
- Rainbows, it makes the poster look less professional (stick with 3-4 colors)
- Dark on Dark or light on light colors

Title Title Title

5. Now you have your colors, how do you get them inside your poster?
Design-Seeds.com
Copy the #0000 value corresponding to the color you want
HEX Code
#0000
Conver the Hex Code into CMYK values. You
can find a lot of free online converters just by
using google. CMYK is used for printing colors
(if you ever had a poster come out a different
color than intended, it was most likely due to
the color mode not being in CMYK)
Use a HEX Code to CMYK Converter
Take those four numbers and navigate to
Microsoft Powerpoint. Select More colors under
the color option for shape or text. Select the
second icon on the top bar, and choose CMYK
sliders. Paste in the corresponding values

color.adobe.com CMYK Microsoft Powerpoint

(Print)