EXHIBITS
Évora
Member’s Exhibit
John Cody
Poster Session
Isabel Catalão
Sagres
Oceans
Lisbon
Scientific Illustration
Medical Illustration
	Guild of Natural Science Illustrators GNSI 2000 Portugal: International Conference & Annual Meeting July 30 - August 07 2000 in Évora, Lisboa and Sagres, Portugal.

By Kris Kirkeby

The GNSI Conference in Lisbon, Portugal will be a very exciting event. It's also sure to strengthen our international outreach. A new feature at this meeting will be a Poster Session. This article is your official call for entries! We hope individual members or chapters will decide to put together a poster presentation of information about the specific techniques used in Scientific Illustration, new and classic art mediums that are used (carbon dust, color dust, silver point, pen and ink, coquille board, scratchboard, etc.), or subjects within a specific field such as entomology, archeology, botanicals, etc. Or perhaps work up that special project you may have worked on or present a specialized unique approach that would interest scientific illustrators around the world! Pedro Salgado reports there is enough room for about 50 posters so we really encourage many participants to submit entries. More than one person can author a poster - teaming up will make it less labor intensive. Let's make a good showing for this project! Poster presentations are often used in scientific meetings as a way to show large numbers of projects in short amounts of time. The viewing time at a poster is usually no longer than fifteen minutes. Posters are a form of presenting information as a visual aid that can stand alone as a communication or serve as a tool to aid a verbal presentation. Posters depend on visuals rather than text as a way of condensing down information. Most of our illustration work and techniques are particularly well suited to this format. However, spending time editing text down to concise, clear information is very important. A text-wallpapered poster goes unread! Posters can be designed as small units of information pasted on a mat board or railroad board backing; larger pieces, hinged to collapse down to a smaller size; or as a one-piece electronic output poster that can be rolled. The Guild has two video tapes that may help you. The first tape is an overview of posters as a communication tool and will provide you with tips for the preparation of the poster. The second is a assembly method demonstration (hinged piece technique). The methods outlined are those I used when I taught professional scientific poster preparation at the University of Minnesota to faculty, staff, and students. The tapes may be checked out from our GNSI DC office for the price of shipping. Your first step is to write an Abstract which is a condensed summary of the poster information. This abstract must be 300 words or less. We'll publish these in a booklet and made available to meeting participants.
These abstracts are due by May 1, 2000. They must be sent via e-mail to Kris Kirkeby at: kirke002@tc.umn.edu. PLEASE NOTE: I will accept non-e-mail ones, this was done for ease of making the abstract booklet. I am also asking people to list their name, affliation and location for that booklet. Listed below are the poster specifications:

POSTER SIZE: Design for a 32 x 40 inches space or approx. 0.9 x 1.2 meters. The poster design should be heavily weighed to visual arts versus excessive use of text.
TITLE: List the title of the poster, your name, specialty (botanical illustrator, etc.) when applicable, and affiliation (museum, university, or freelance illustrator, etc.), your city/town, and country.
FONTS AND LETTERING SIZES: Use a Sans Serif font style (such as Helvetica) which makes it easier read from a distance. All the text on the poster should be in Bold. Use space-and-a-half leading or double spacing. The TITLE should be in 72 point.
SUBTITLES should be used: Abstract, Methods, Discussion, Results or Summary. Use 36 point lettering for these. The REMAINING TEXT should be in 24 point. All the specifications above make reading easier for the viewer.
POSTER ARRIVAL DEADLINE: Posters that are mailed must arrive in Portugal by July 10, 2000.
The posters will be mounted at the conference site on white foamcore boards. Organizers will provide pins, Velcro, double-sided tape, and spray adhesive glue for attaching it to the boards. You must come with a completed poster. Time will be given to complete the display affixing of the poster at the display site but not for composing a poster. Posters should be hand-carried on the plane, not checked. Again, if you aren't attending and need to send the poster, the Portugal committee will see that it gets mounted but you must allow ample time for it to arrive there. Please check with your local shippers on the time needed to meet the above deadline. If you are not going to be able to go to Portugal, this is a great way to be represented! Those of you who already have your plane tickets in hand - please volunteer to represent your artwork to the international world with a poster. If I can help in any way or if you have questions, please contact me at 641-647-9532. It is the excitement, the honesty of a response to nature that guides our hand; and if this excitment is often so strong that one works without noticing that one is working... Van Gogh
Kristine A. Kirkeby
Kirkeby Illustrations
2173 Dudley Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55108-1461

Copyright © 2000 GNSI - Guild of Natural Science Illustrators - All rights reserved.
Last Updated: February 06, 2000.