Graphic Design
Our designers create professional publications at commercial standards that conform with department, corporate and university requirements.
We offer personal consultation to ensure that we understand all your needs and have the skills, experience and creativity to present your information professionally.
We provide design services for clinical materials which include:
- Conference research posters (printed and ePosters)
- Journal image preparation
- Clinical tools (e.g. posters, lanyard reference cards, staff reference guides).
Other design involving corporate promotion and material for public consumption, can be ordered through the CHS Communications design team and brought to Multimedia Services for printing.
Schedule
Multimedia requires a minimum of 2 weeks for a design job. Sometimes we do book out, so don’t leave it until the last minute or we may not be able to fit you in.
Purpose
Is your content to be presented to the medical community or does it contain information for public consumption? All corporate promotion and information for the public must go through the CHS Communications team for design and approval.
Size
Check your available display space and if ordering a poster, confirm whether you need portrait or landscape. Conferences usually provide the display board dimensions and instructions on poster size and orientation.
Style
Consider the type of poster that you want designed e.g. creative or scientific, light or dark. Do you have a preference of colour scheme or paper type? If you are unsure, we can show you some samples to help you decide, or you can leave it up to us.
There are three main things to consider when preparing content for a conference poster: audience, message and space.
Think about where your poster will be displayed. Who is the audience? What is the message or vital information that you want to get across to that audience? How much (if any) background information do you actually need to include in order for your message or research results to have context? Consider the type of poster that you want e.g. creative or scientific (a creative poster requires a lot more design space and therefore a low word count).
Posters should present an overview, they should not contain your entire research. A 'wall' of text is not enticing and is likely to be ignored.
Poster Heading / Title
Consider your poster heading carefully. Your heading is the most important piece of information to attract your audience.
The shorter the poster heading, the larger it can be displayed. Long headings have to be reduced in font size in order to comfortably fit the rest of your content and then can’t always be read from across a room.
Graphics
Think about what piece(s) of information can be displayed as a graphic e.g. a graph showing results of a survey or a flow chart showing an important process. Graphic components are used to display information that can be grasped at a glance in a clear and concise manner. They are used to attract attention from a distance and should display your most important information. They do require a significant amount of poster space, so try not to include too many.
Word Count
If you find you have too many words, bullets are useful to condense your information. However, avoid putting your entire content into bullet points, as this can result in using more space.
For an A0 conference poster, keep your total word count to around 800 (maximum 1,000 words). If you have more than 3 image components (this includes graphs, tables, flowcharts or descriptive images), your word count needs to be closer to 500.
Sub Headings
Break up your content into clear sections of information with sub headings. This way an audience can easily navigate to a section of interest. Scientific research posters are usually broken up into the following sections: Background, Aims, Methods, Results and Conclusions.
All supplied content must be final. If your content needs to be checked by any contributors or supervisors, this must be done before handing it over for design.
Text
Text is best supplied as a Microsoft Word document. If ordering an A0 conference poster, keep your total word count to around 800 (maximum 1000 words). If you have more than 3 image components (this includes graphs, tables, flowcharts or descriptive images), your word count needs to be closer to 500.
Graphs
Graphs should be supplied in their original file type e.g. Excel or PowerPoint (with your data included). If using SPSS, please export and supply your graph as a PDF.
Images
Images should be supplied in their original format. DO NOT supply them in a Word or PowerPoint document unless that is your only copy. If you have multiple versions of an image, provide the version that has the largest file size. If supplying your images via email, please attach them, rather than embedding them in the email.
Note that images saved from the web are not suitable for large posters due to their reduced quality and copyright restriction.
Provide written consent for any photography that involves consumers or staff.
Logos
CHS, ANU and Health Directorate logos do not need to be supplied. Any additional logos will need to be supplied by you with approval gained from the department/organisation involved. Logos can usually be sourced from an organisation's communications or marketing team.
Do not save a logo from a website. Ask the organisation for an EPS copy of their logo, or the next highest quality version for PRINT.
Step 1
Submit a Work Request and supply your content (email or in person).
Step 2
Meeting (Optional if you would like to discuss any design preferences).
Step 3
Design begins (after payment approval if charging to a cost centre [your department]).
Step 4
Draft on-screen viewing, followed by any adjustments.
Step 5
A3 printed proof supplied for final client approval / sign off.
Step 6
Printing and collection.
See also: