A Step Above Crayons and Elmer's...Barely

I must conclude, after observing an admittedly small sample, that undergraduate college students have very little design sensibility. That, or they're just lazy.

The class with the posters met Thursday, and mine and another student's poster were the only two with any sort of design sense. One student bragged about how she bought the rainbow assortment of Sharpies to make her poster beautiful. It was very...colorful. She wrote her various sentences in all the different colors. Of course, with a color printer, she could have done the same thing on a computer...and used spellcheck.

Another student must have used a whole roll of scotch tape. And I know this, because we could see the tape. It wasn't even doubled over to go on the back side...just plopped onto the papers she taped to the poster. The papers fluttered away from the poster board, making it hard to see what they actually said.

One poster actually had a color scheme, but the writing was too small to read. It was probably 10-point font. These were posters that we had to hold up in front of small groups to complement a speech about our topic. I was the only one who didn't use flimsy posterboard (I used foamboard), and I was therefore the only one who didn't have to fight to keep my poster from rolling up or falling down.

Lesson for all you kids out there: having a well-designed, well-thought-out poster will make you infinitely more comfortable when you make a speech or presentation. The last thing you want to do is be worrying that your prop(s) will fall apart or fall down. It will make you that much more nervous. Plus, it is just plain unprofessional...something you should care about even if it's just college. You'll also be more comfortable if you dress nicely, but I realize that's a lot to ask of many of you.

Posted by Jenelle at April 9, 2006 10:46 PM | TrackBack