Posters are printed weekly and are ready for pickup on or after Thursday. Only posters received before Tuesday at 5PM will be printed that week. Any posters received after 5PM on Tuesday will be printed the following week. We cannot make any exceptions. You must be affiliated with UConn Health and use your @uchc.edu email address to log into the submittal form below. We do not accept submissions any other way. Submit up to 10 posters per form. Please do not submit separate forms for single posters requested for the same week; upload multiple posters using one form submission.
For questions prior to submitting your print request, contact us. If we have questions, we'll reach out via email. Posters can be picked up at 195 Farmington Ave, Suite 2100, Farmington.
Please take a minute to read the following information. Most of the issues we encounter can be (or could have been) avoided if these very straightforward guidelines are/were observed.
Basic Production
- It really should go without saying, but please edit your work. Punctuation and grammar are the most common mistakes. Pay attention to consistent use of bullet points, periods, capitalization and abbreviations. Use apostrophes correctly.
- Make sure titles and credentials of colleagues and mentors are correct.
- Please follow the guidelines below. If we can’t print your poster on time due to color issues, technical issues with the format, etc., you will run the risk of not getting a print at all.
- Test print your poster on a regular piece of 8.5 x 11” paper. You’ll often catch issues that may go unnoticed onscreen. It takes less than 30 seconds and can save hours of work down the road.
Most people have been using Microsoft PowerPoint to create and edit their posters. Ideally, desktop publishing software like Microsoft Publisher or Adobe InDesign would be used, but many people do not have access to, or the familiarity with those titles. If you use PowerPoint, set the slide size to the desired finished dimensions. Note: You will not be able to produce a poster larger than 56” x 56”.
To set the slide size to the desired poster size in PowerPoint:
- Click Design on the ribbon.
- Click the down carat on the Slide Size button.
- Click Custom Size.
- Input the width and height of the finished poster.
- Click Maximize.
- Layout your poster.
- Save your file.
- Save again as PDF. See below to confirm the correct size.
When submitting the poster for printing, submit only PDFs. Simply save-as PDF in the software you're using to create the poster. Make sure that the PDF is the size of the final desired print. In Acrobat, click View > Show/Hide > Rulers and Grids and click rulers. You can now see the exact measurements. This is the size at which your poster will print. The size choices on the form correspond to the height of the poster if printed in landscape layout. If printed in portrait layout, the size chosen corresponds to the width. For example, if your poster is 36" tall by 48" long, you would choose 36" on the form. We ask you to choose a size, because we batch print based on paper roll width.
Branding and Logos
Refer to the Brand Standards website for specific guidelines regarding the usage of the university and institutional logos and wordmarks. There are very strict rules in place to make sure the logos and branding used present the most accurate academic and professional image of the institution(s). Do not simply copy logos off of the UConn or UConn Health websites, Google Image Search or elsewhere. Logos can be downloaded at the site above. Furthermore, if your department, academic center or institute does not have a custom wordmark, one can be made for use. Here are the approved wordmarks for the Department of Public Health Sciences and the Program in Applied Public Health Sciences. The links are to zip files that contain the logos in different colors for you to choose from.
Images
There are two types of graphics in digital media: raster and vector graphics. Raster graphics are made up of pixels. Photographs are a good example of raster graphics. Raster graphics are great because they allow for high levels of detail and fine tuning (using Photoshop and Lightroom to edit/adjust for example). The downside is that they will lose detail and become blurry as they’re enlarged, stretched or skewed. Vector graphics are made up of point to point lines and curves generated mathematically. They’re created in vector drawing software like Adobe Illustrator. In their original format, they can be edited and manipulated without losing fidelity and are infinitely scalable. They’re good for logos and drawings. Once exported though, they may be converted to rasterized JPEGs and the limitations of raster graphics apply.
The distinction is important. When creating a poster, you’re going to be doing so on a screen that is much smaller than the final printed product. As described above, raster images will become blurry and illegible as they get bigger. Also, do not mistake a raster graphic for a vector graphic just because it is text. A logo found on an image search is most likely a raster graphic. Files with the extensions .jpg and .png are raster graphics.
The best approach when using photos or any raster graphic is to get the largest possible image and reduce it to fit. Making the image smaller will not lose quality. While on the subject of images, or really any content, we should briefly discuss copyright. Make sure all non-original content is properly used, attributed or cited. Often enough, content used for academic purposes falls under fair use, but not always. It is imperative that you understand fair use in regards to the content you choose for your poster.
Lastly, remember that the text used needs to be large enough to be legible at distance. The branding site mentioned above has great information on specific sizes for specific use cases. Keep in mind that styles and fonts used for text like citations, footnotes superscripts and subscripts may vary drastically from screen to print.
For questions prior to submitting your print request, contact us.