Guidance from the Local Chapter Affairs Committee on the Chapter Poster Award Competition

  • Main idea is to "Tell us your story".
  • Size of your poster doesn't matter...bigger is not better necessarily!  The average size should be around 3 to 3.5 feet in height and 4 to 5 feet in width.  This will fit well within the boundaries of the 4x8 ft. poster panel allotted to each chapter.
  • Don't get too wordy...too much text can overpower the poster's eye appeal and clarity.
  • Do use enough text to get your point across...be succinct and to the point.
  • Use text to describe your photos.
  • We are looking to see if your chapter has accomplished or set new goals and objectives...we want to see growth in your chapter, whatever that may look like...even small goals are great!  Multi-dimensional chapters stand out more than one-dimensional ones.
  • Highlight your successes...educational outreach, membership growth, recent accomplishments, fun things you did as a chapter.
  • We want eye appeal...draw your viewers in from a distance with something that catches their eye.  This could be an interesting color scheme, eye appealing photographs or graphics, style of paper you printed your poster on, etc.
  • Use the AMS logos graphics (Local Chapter, Honor Roll, Chapter of Year, Student Chapter of Year) from Headquarters...they are higher in resolution and can be enlarged (to a point) without pixelation or jagged edges.
  • Make sure your photos are the proper resolution before enlarging.  If your photo is too low in resolution, enlarging it will cause extreme pixelation.  Proper enlargement of photos can be done by using a technique called dithering.  Ask the LCAC committee on how to perform this.
  • Make sure your photos are not too dark or bright and have the right contrast to be clearly viewable on your poster.
  • Make sure your font styles are easy to read and that your font colors are appropriate such that they compliment your background color.  For example, a dark font color on a dark background color will be hard to read.  Dark font color on a light colored background is much easier to read.
  • Don't need to spend a lot on color printing...we understand that budgets will vary and it is not our intent to reward the most expensively made posters.  Do the best you can within your budget.
  • Local Chapter mission statements are important...if you have one, put it on the poster.
  • If you have a chapter website, please put it on your poster somewhere.  Even images of your website can be added.
  • Make sure your poster is about your chapter and not the department you study at or work for.   This poster is suppose to show off your chapter so use every inch of it to do just that!
  • Activities listed on the application must be valid from May of the previous year to April of the current year.
    Chapter Poster awards - activities listed on the poster must be valid from the previous AMS Annual Meeting .
    If additional material is added from a previous year, please be sure to clarify when it is from
    Activities must be associated with the Chapter.