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Showing posts from June, 2017

How to edit shapes in Keynote 7

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Keynote offers very good tools to do complex shapes, and just no rectangles, circles, triangles and so on: Complex shapes are not only done using the "Draw With Pen" tool, but also by reshaping basic shapes and combining them using boolean operations. Note I'll be using Keynote 7.1.1. Boolean Operations The boolean operations offer by Keynote are Unite, Subtract, Intersect, and Exclude: First things first, the boolean operations are found in Keynote on the Format panel, under the Arrange tab. The operations are only shown when two or more shapes are selected , like shown in the figure above. With the first three operations one can quickly make a shape like this: With the fourth operation one can punch a hole in a figure: Editing Shapes In this tutorial, we are going to go for this diagram 1. Add a square and make it editable. Right Click on the selected shape and Left Click  on Make Editable. 2. Add a new vertex by placing the mouse pointer on

Why scientific posters suck and what to do about it. Part 2

So you are brave and/or foolish and have set out into the adventure of designing and producing a scientific poster. Here are my thought and advice. Fuck it, hire a graphic designer! Seriously, you are a researcher, not an artist, not a designer. Instead focus on the storytelling of your poster. Why does your research matter? Are your methods innovative, and could other people benefit from knowing about them? What are your results? Where does it go from here? In order words, what are the open questions? In these times of cinematographic universes, think of the last question as a sequel (Note to self: idea for the  open question slide "Iron Man 2"). Moreover, if you think about "related research" as other heroes in your research field. Make a very high quality, high resolution CV-like photograph of you in Black and White. Say what,  Juan? In case you must add a picture of you in a poster be prepared by having a professional image that you are not ashamed of. Black

Why scientific posters suck and what to do about it. Part 1

If young scientists struggle with good visuals on their presentations, imagine the horror show call poster sessions. The reason why scientific poster suck is simple: (most) scientists don't have the graphic design skills that it takes to make a poster. Let's face it. When it comes to conceptualize, design, and produce a scientific poster, there is a culture of mediocrity, bad taste and incompetence. Be aware that producing good presentation visuals is a different business than producing good posters. True, both have some things in common,  but they are not the same.  Chances to learn and type of media are just two of those differences.  Compare how often researchers produce posters to how often they prepare slides. There are more chances to fail and learn on the latter. And if science is about learning you can see the difficulty. And here is the first and best way to stop making scientific posters: Work together with a graphic designer . Here are some guidelines on how to c