06 September 2012

Chemistry is magic!

Neil Withers spotted this poster on Reddit:

One of my friends entrusted my group and I to print his poster for a conference...he chose poorly.

You can click to enlarge...


I’m going to go out on a limb here. While this was meant as a joke...

I actually think it’s kind of effective.

Remember what the point of a poster is? It’s to give people something to talk about. And this poster does that, make no mistake. If I saw this poster, I would walk up to it and start a conversation.

The trick, though, is to make people go away remembering the science and not the joke. That wouldn’t be easy, because the joke is so good. But if you took away the joke, you might have far fewer chances to explain the science. On your next poster, maybe you can loosen up and have a little fun.

Related posts

Conversation piece

Hat tip to Biochem Belle.

Additional, 17 October
: Sciencegurl noticed this in her department.

2 comments:

Jay Buckley said...

We think that printing a large background image like this is a really disruptive thing for your poster. People will remember the image, and forget the content. Our rules for a memorable poster is an image that will catch the eye, and a title that will interest your audience. This poster meets the first criteria, and fails badly the second.

Zen Faulkes said...

I'm not crazy about background images at the best of times, because it make the text less readable. The background is not the only gag in the poster, though. You could lose the background but keep the humour.