Simple design principles for science graphics

No artistic skills or talents are required to immediately improve how your graphics are interpreted by various audiences. This interactive workshop draws on Gestalt theory, pre-attentive processing, and other principles of human perception to help scientists create slides and figures that transmit information more efficiently and effectively.

By learning these principles, participants will leave understanding how they can work for them, and more importantly, ensuring that they aren’t working against them.

Making art with scientists

This workshop emphasizes the many benefits of the process of creating. Through a variety of drawing and creativity exercises, participants will strengthen their observational skills and ability to not only generate new ideas, but also to question assumptions and probe ideas and models in ways that they might not have otherwise thought to.

Participants will gain a deeper appreciation for science communication—that it is not for prettying up, dumbing down, or spinning. As scientists become more active participants in the process, they will become better communicators and better scientists, and they will have more meaningful collaborations with professional science communicators.