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Producing conference posters

At Barts Health NHS Trust, the Department of Medical Illustration provides a comprehensive service to staff wishing to produce high quality posters for conferences and meetings.

The department prefer to have poster information brought to them so they can help researchers fill in the request form. If researchers cannot come to the department personally they can accept information electronically by email.

To fill in the request form the department need:

1. Researcher's name, department and contact details. Please make sure the person who signs the request form has been authorised to do so. 
2. The size of the poster and the orientation – landscape or portrait. This information may have been given to researchers  by conference organisers but look at it carefully, sometimes only the board size is given and in that case the department would make the poster slightly smaller. Also note researchers   may have to fix the poster themself: the department supply only velcro and double sided tape.
3. The date researchers need the poster. The department like at least two weeks notice. It may occasionally be possible to produce a poster more quickly but researchers must check with Medical Illustration first and a higher rate may be charged.
4. A budget code if the work is for a department. Posters can be invoiced to individuals but the department need a home address for private invoicing.
5. Any additional information such as colour, logos or design preferences.

How to supply information

The department need the content of researchers posters in two forms:

a) A hard copy of the text and a printed copy of any graphs or diagrams. Please indicate where any diagrams etc. should be placed in relation to the text.

b) The information on disc as follows:

• Text in a Word document or PowerPoint presentation.
• Graphs/diagrams in: Excel, PowerPoint, Illustrator, Freehand
• Photographs, drawings, maps: saved in picture formats such as jpegs or tiffs.
• X-rays, negatives and photographs on paper can be scanned in but remember it takes us time and will therefore cost more. The department can also take photographs for researchers and the department have some copyright-free photographs of men/women/children in various poses that are available for use.

It is essential that graphs, diagrams, photographs etc. are not provided already embedded in a Word document. It is extremely difficult for us to extract them without distorting the images and they have to be redrawn which costs time and money.

Important: If researchers are using photographs of patients, they should have obtained their written consent and indicated on the clinical photography request/consent form the potential use of the photographs. If this is not done researchers will be in breach of the code of responsible practice for medical illustration. Request/consent forms for photography undertaken by Medical Illustration, and for images taken within a department, are available from stationery stores or from Medical Illustration.

Printing self- designed posters

The department can print a poster researchers have produced themselves in PowerPoint, or the department can print from a pdf, but please ring beforehand to check the details with us.

A few tips:

Keep text to a minimum especially if  the presenter will be standing in front of a poster answering questions. It should not be a journal article transferred to the wall.

Researchers can cut down on text by:

• Using bullet points
• Not going into unnecessary detail especially in a 'methods' section
• Not including an abstract
• Try not to use capital letters unless they are for proper names, titles or at the beginning of a sentence.

After the design has been completed

The department will contact researchers and either give them an A3 print of the poster for checking or send a pdf via email. It is the poster ‘oqner’ who is responsible for checking the work carefully to remove any mistakes. Many locally produced posters have won prizes and the department take pride in their work.

Contact details:

Department of Medical Illustration
Long Row
St Bartholomew's Hospital
West Smithfield
London EC1 7BE

Telephone numbers:

Design section: tel 020 7601 8082/3
Photography: tel 020 7601 8080/1
Manager: tel 020 7601 8084

Website www.3arts.co.uk
Fax:020 7601 8085
Email: medillustration@btclick.com

Manager: bob.tapper@bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk