This year, we will be sharing posters virtually at ICLDC 8. We will be utilizing GatherTown as the platform for the poster sessions. GatherTown is an online platform that allows presenters to share content and communicate with participants in a virtual conference environment.
In order to help you prepare your poster for ICLDC, we have provided some guidelines and instructions.
This page is intended for poster creation for Poster Presenters. If you are looking for information on a specific topic, please see the Guide Contents below.
For comprehensive information on how to get started with GatherTown, please see these guides on GatherTown’s website. This video also provides a good introduction to GatherTown. More in-depth information on Poster Session Interaction will be provided on the General GatherTown Guide.
Guide Contents
Poster Basics
For ICLDC 8, instead of reading a poster on a board from a distance, participants will view digital versions of a poster on their computer screen during a live-streamed poster session. The basic requirements for posters are as follows:
- Poster must be uploaded as both a PDF and PNG.
- Use a 16:9 aspect ratio.
- Poster will ideally be landscape orientation to maximize readability on computer screens.
- Do not use a transparent background.
- The file name should contain all authors’ last names separated by an underscore ‘_’ , along with the year (e.g., if John Doe and Sarah Smith are the presenting authors, the file name should be Doe_Smith_2023).
- Files must be uploaded to our Google Drive by January 31, 2023 (11:59PM HST), via the following form: ICLDC Poster Form
Please make sure to follow the required Accessibility Guidelines, which are outlined on the Accessibility Guidelines for All Presenters page.
Once you upload your poster to Google Drive, we will upload them to GatherTown for you and notify you once it is ready.
During your poster presentation you will be live-streaming video (much like on Zoom) to present your poster. Please note that poster presentations will not include pre-recorded videos.
-You will need to register on GatherTown by January 31, 2023 (the same deadline as for poster submissions). The ICLDC 8 GatherTown Space can be accessed with this link. When registering on GatherTown, please input your full name, along with your institution affiliation, in the <nickname> category on GatherTown to avoid confusion (e.g., John Doe, UH Mānoa).
Getting Started
A poster briefly outlines all of the key points of your project or study (e.g., the theoretical framework or important background information, research questions or hypotheses, methodology, key findings, and any implications the study might have). Because it is a poster, anyone who quickly skims it should have a pretty good understanding of the main ideas.
During the poster presentation session, participants may come up to your poster in GatherTown, ask you questions, get more details, offer feedback, etc. Furthermore, you will have the opportunity to answer any questions left on your poster’s message board during asynchronous viewing. The synchronous poster sessions are more informal than papers, and they offer a great opportunity for virtual interaction between presenter and participants.
Tips on Good Poster Design
A well-received poster is clear, concise, and visually uncluttered. It also often has pictures or charts summarizing data if applicable. Since your poster is digital, you have the freedom to organize the poster in a variety of ways.
This guide from NYU is helpful for creating and using graphics and images in your poster. (Disregard the advice for printing posters.)
Digital Poster Tips
Since posters will be viewed on a screen, we recommend using landscape orientation. Posters may have any dimensions, but we recommend that it be readable on a screen without zooming in. For easier digital readability, you can use a horizontal sequence of information blocks, as opposed to a vertical one.
Use this:
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
Instead of this:
1 4 7
2 5 8
3 6 9
Remember that the images and text need to be easy to see, so use high-quality images whenever possible. In order to make all text as readable as possible, please use Arial as your font. The minimum suggested font size is 12 pts. Line spacing should be between 1.15 and 2. We recommend testing the finished product before submitting it to us.
Note that PDF poster files will be able to redirect you from GatherTown to Google Drive where you can download the PDF poster file, and participants can then read them in their PDF viewer.
Saving Your Poster
Save the poster as both a PDF and a PNG file. This will help increase readability and make it more accessible.
For more info on accessibility, please visit the Accessibility Guidelines for All Presenters Page
Uploading Your Poster
Once you have saved the poster file in PDF and PNG formats, please upload them through our ICLDC Poster Upload Form by January 31, 2023 (11:59PM HST). We will upload your files to GatherTown and let you know once we do. These posters will be viewable on GatherTown before, during, and after the conference.