Making Maps: Poster for NWFLGIS Chapter Meeting

There it is - my first GIS science poster!

I created the poster as a submission to the friendly map competition that occurs for each of the NWFL GIS Chapter meetings. Last meeting I was just starting classes in the spring. This time I had completed my RHEC internship and had something I could draw up and submit to represent work from UWF students. As this was my first time making a college level science poster I relied on an online article by writingcommons.org that described the usual standards for science posters, and I had my PhD Candidate Watershed Sciences sister look it over and offer suggestions. Remember my background is a BFA in Illustration, so all my exhibit materials were a singular work as a result, with methods or purpose maybe discussed in the attached notes, not a poster that included methods, results, and purpose on the actual physical piece. This was all new to me.

The poster was simple enough to make, including the obvious map results, my methods, the intention, acknowledgements, the affiliate logos, and a bit about what I learned with the internship. The biggest challenge was discovering one of my trails had disappeared from my map, and having to rework that shapefile data, and color calibration. There is no way I can calibrate color between my laptop, the printer somewhere in someone's office, and other the other viewer's monitors. I found that the color was especially inconsistent for iPads and other handheld viewing devices. I wonder how marketing directors and graphic designers handle that in our modern techno world?

Note: I just received word that I won third place out of 10 submissions for my poster at the meeting (I was unable to attend). I received a nice little certificate too!